Households and families
Edward Higgs
In the manuscript censuses, the people found within a house, however defined, could be further divided into 'families' or 'households'. However, the household in the census is an administrative artefact and does not correspond to the biological family. The censuses from 1801 to 1831 asked for information from the overseers of the poor on the numbers of 'families' in the parish, and in various economic sectors, but did not define that entity. They also sought data on baptisms, marriages and deaths, which suited a broad interest in demographic trends. The household in the Victorian censuses was defined as those people present in a house on census night whom a householder reported on his or her household schedule. Sons and daughters who had grown up and left home should not have appeared on a household schedule, nor, of course, should those yet to be born. In the twentieth century, however, some questions were asked which pushed beyond this de facto definition of the household to include information on a broader range of family members. At the same time, there were some people included in the household which we would not think of as part of the biological family today — servants, boarders, apprentices, and so on. This makes the interpretation of household data in the Census Reports somewhat difficult to interpret.
The household on the page of the Victorian census enumerators' books is usually easy to spot. In 1841 the beginning of the first 'family' coincided logically with the beginning of the house but its end was marked by a single oblique stroke on the dividing line between the houses and names columns. The next 'family' then began, ending with a single stroke unless it happened to be the last household in the house. The end of a house was marked with a double stroke. In 1851 the end of the 'family' was marked by a line across the page, similar to that indicating the end of a house, but only running across part of the second column, as well as the third and fourth. The line for the end of the house ran completely across the first four columns. The beginning of a new household was also marked by a new schedule number in the column provided for that purpose. From 1861 onwards oblique strokes were used in the same manner as 1841 but the beginning of each household was also marked by a new schedule number. From 1911 onwards abstraction of census data was done directly from the schedules filled out by the householders, so each separate schedule represents a household (Higgs, 1989, 58).
The Victorian census household thus comprised those persons whom an 'occupier' put down on his or her household schedule. But how was the enumerator to identify such a person, and how were they in turn expected to define the members of their 'family'? The 1841 instructions on this matter were limited. The enumerator:
must cause a householder's schedule paper to be left at every house in his district for the occupier, and where a floor or room is let separately, a separate paper for each occupier of every such floor or room...
The definition of the household depended, therefore, on the position of the occupier as the person who paid rent. It is not clear, however, how someone sub-letting off the occupier was treated. In the absence in 1841 of the column for relationship to the head of the household which appeared in later censuses, it is difficult to reconstruct the treatment of lodgers and other non-kin (Higgs, 1989, 59).
In 1851 the enumerator was to leave a separate household schedule with each 'occupier':
understanding by 'occupier' either the resident owner or any person who pays rent, whether (as a tenant) for the whole of a house or (as a lodger) for any distinct floor or apartment".
The intention here was probably to define the household in terms of the occupation of a distinct space within a house. But what about those cases in which boarders or lodgers did not occupy a 'distinct floor or apartment', but shared part of the house with their landlords (Higgs, 1989, 59)?
The 1851 definition of the occupier was repeated ten years later but an attempt was made in 1861 to introduce a distinction between differing types of lodger. The enumerators were now told that the following were amongst the cases in which a household schedule should be left:
for a family consisting of a man, his wife, and children;
of parents, children, servants and visitors;
for a family consisting of parents and children, with boarders at the same table, and the servants of the family, if any;
for a lodger alone, or two or more lodgers boarding together.
These instructions, repeated in the next two censuses, with their new definition of a family in terms of 'commensality', were probably designed to define the household as those persons in exclusive occupation of a room or rooms within a house. But in the examples provided for filling in the schedules the solitary lodger was regarded as both a separate household and also as part of another co-residing group. This plainly caused confusion amongst householders and enumerators (Higgs, 1989, 59).
In 1891 an attempt was made to eliminate some of these ambiguities. The definition of the occupier supplied to the enumerator omitted the term 'lodger' altogether:
As a general rule, the term 'occupier' is to be understood to apply to the resident owner, or to a person who pays rent whether for the whole of a house, or for a tenement consisting of one or more rooms.
The enumerator was also instructed that a household schedule should be left with 'the occupier of a tenement living alone, or for two or more lodgers living together in one tenement.' This was probably an attempt to raise the household status of lodgers not boarding with the families off whom they sub-let. The effect was spoilt, however, by confusion in the example given to the enumerator (Higgs, 1989, 60).
The situation was finally clarified in 1901 when the enumerators were instructed to leave a household schedule, amongst others:
(a) for the head of a family occupying the whole or part of a house. NOTE — A 'family' is held to include a man, and his wife and children (if any), also any relatives, visitors, servants, and persons boarding with the family, and residing together under one roof.
(b) for a lodger (with or without family) separately occupying a room or rooms, and not boarding with any family in the house.
In the examples supplied to householders and enumerators, the term 'lodger' had disappeared. Every household was made up of a head, his relatives, and servants. One household contained a 'boarder'. The examples on the household schedules from 1911 onwards showed a similar arrangement. The lodger boarding alone, or with other lodgers, had finally achieved full household status (Higgs, 1989, 60). Declining household size in the census may merely reflect this redefinition of what counted as such an entity, although it is difficult to estimate the size of this problem.
In the early twentieth century, there was a shift away from seeing the household or 'family' solely in terms of the de facto household on census night. The 1911 census asked for information on the total number of children born alive to the present marriage, the number still alive, and the number who had died (Szreter, 1996, 604–5).
In 1921 the fertility survey was not repeated but there were other new questions on the family. Married men, widowers and widows were to give the number and ages of their living children and stepchildren, whether they were residing in the household or not. In the case of children under 15, it was to be stated if the parents of children were both alive, or whether the father, mother, or both were dead (Census of England and Wales, 1921, General report with appendices, 190, 202–3). The reason for collecting information on the ages and numbers of children, and on orphans, was stated to be 'for the service of the increasingly numerous and important problems relating to pensions, invalidity allowances, workmen's compensation, and such like matters in respect to which the liabilities of individuals are to some extent measurable in terms of the numbers and conditions of others economically dependant upon them' (Census of England and Wales, 1921. Dependency, orphanhood and fertility, iii).
The data relating to households or families are widely dispersed amongst the Census Reports. In the pre-1841 Reports much of the data given are in the form of the number of families in parishes or in economic sectors. Tables or text relating to 'population' thereafter usually covered the numbers and form of households as well as individuals, whether nationally or in smaller administrative areas. In the early twentieth century, there were also separate volumes on fertility and dependency within families (Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. XIII; Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. XII; Census of England and Wales, 1921, Dependency, orphanhood and fertility).
REFERENCES
Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. XIII. Fertility of marriage. Part I. BPP 1917–18 XXXV. [View this document: Fertility of marriage (part I), 1911]
Census of England and Wales, 1911, General report with appendices BPP 1917–18 XXXV. [View this document: General report, England and Wales, 1911]
Census of England and Wales, 1911, Vol. XII. Fertility of marriage. Part II (London: HMSO, 1923). [View this document: Fertility of marriage (part II), 1911]
Census of England and Wales, 1921. Dependency, orphanhood and fertility (London: HMSO, 1925). [View this document: Dependency, orphanhood and fertility, England and Wales, 1921]
Census of England and Wales, 1921. General report with appendices (London: HMSO, 1927). [View this document: General report, England and Wales, 1921]
Edward Higgs, Making sense of the census. The manuscript returns for England and Wales, 1801–1901 (London, 1989).
Simon Szreter, Fertility, class and gender in Britain 1860–1940 (Cambridge, 1996).