Ad hoc censuses

Edward Higgs

In Britain censuses have been taken regularly every ten years since 1801. One of the main uses of the results of the censuses was to create base populations for the country and its divisions so that deaths per thousand population could be calculated for them. In between censuses the populations of administrative units had to be calculated on the basis of the trends in population growth between the two previous censuses. This could lead to an erroneous inflation or deflation of deaths rates if the population of the units were rising either faster or slower than the previously recorded trend. This led to demands for the taking of a quinquennial (five-yearly) census mid-way between the decennial censuses by the 1890 Treasury Committee on the Census (Report of the Treasury Committee on the Census, xii). This proposal was supported by both the General Register Office (GRO) and medical officers of health (MOHs). The GRO was the body responsible for collecting and publishing death statistics based on the civil registration of deaths, whilst the MOHs were responsible for the health of administrative areas. Both wanted area death rates to be as accurate as possible.

The majority report of the 1890 Treasury Committee recommended the taking of a national quinquennial census. However, Sir Reginald Welby, the Treasury's permanent secretary and a member of the Committee, argued against these proposals in a minority report on the grounds of cost, and they were not implemented (Report of the Treasury Committee on the Census, xiii–xiv). Welby suggested instead a system whereby local councils could pay for an ad hoc quinquennial census if they wanted one. In the aftermath of the First World War, concerns over manpower in any future conflict led to the passing of the 1920 Census Act, which allowed for the taking of a quinquennial census (Higgs, 2004, 200–1). But the only attempt at a national five-yearly census was in 1966.

The GRO had had experience of undertaking ad hoc censuses before 1890. In March 1887, for example, Sir Brydges Henniker, the Registrar General, informed the Treasury that, "I am directed to obtain on behalf of the Local Government Board [LGB] as soon as possible returns as to the employment of the working classes in certain districts of the Metropolis, and to tabulate the results of the enquiry in this Office" (National Archives, London: RG 29/3, 25). The actual survey involved extensive enquiries made amongst the working-class populations of St George in the East, Battersea, Hackney and Deptford by 'enumerators' selected in the same manner as those for the census. The topics covered in the questions were: address; name; county of birth; marital condition; age; how long resident; if family resident; number of rooms occupied; weekly rent; if physically equal to ordinary labour; disabled; in or out of work; weekly wages; time since last employment; cause of non-employment; means of subsistence when unemployed; length of time unemployed since 31 October; what members of family assist with income; weekly amount of such subsistence; and name/relationship of informant (Conditions of the working classes).

This work generated over 30,000 individual record cards, and placed a considerable administrative burden on the GRO. The initiative may well have been linked to the demonstrations of the unemployed in London in 1886, which were to culminate in the battles of "Bloody Sunday" in Whitehall in November 1887. These were to generate a veritable frenzy of private and public investigation into the lot of the East End poor in the following years (Jones, 290–314). Joseph Chamberlain, as President of the LGB, the minister in charge of the GRO, was so alarmed by the threat of the unemployed that in 1886 he issued a circular to the local authorities urging them to introduce public works for periods of depression, and to co-operate with the Poor Law authorities by providing paid, non-pauperising work for those who applied for poor relief due to temporary unemployment (Thane, 38–9; McBriar, 48–9). The GRO survey of 1887 plainly fitted into the LGB's more pro-active stance.

However, Welby's intervention in 1890 caused even more problems because the GRO had now to respond to the distraction of demands for local enumerations, without having the extra permanent resources to undertake them. In 1894, for example, Parliament passed the London Equalisation of Rates Act, which enabled rates to be standardised across the Metropolis via the creation of an Equalisation Fund. It also authorised the taking of a census for the purpose of calculating the numbers of people present in the vestry wards of each parish in the administrative county of London on the night of 29 March 1896. This was to provide a population base for this equalisation process. The London County Council paid the GRO £150 for four second division clerks and 10 boy clerks or copyists to undertake the work. These were to be temporary postings from other departments but members of the GRO's Statistical Department had to supervise them (Higgs, 112). The results appeared as a seven-page Parliamentary Paper in the same year (Return of population enumerated in Civil Parishes in the Administrative county of London).

Other local ad hoc censuses were subsequently taken. In 1908, the GRO was directed by the LGB, "to take a census of Eastbourne for the purpose of ascertaining the number of persons present within the Borough on the night of Sunday the 24th January 1909". Eastbourne wanted to become a county borough, and to issue stock, which would necessitate it having a population in excess of 50,000. It had taken its own census that showed a population of 50,696 and the LGB wanted an independent census to verify this at Eastbourne's expense. Alas, the GRO's ad hoc census showed that the town's population was only 49,286, and the Town Clerk of Eastbourne was duly billed the total cost of the census, £132 (National Archives, London: RG 19/44A and RG 19/44B).

REFERENCES

Conditions of the working classes. Tabulation of the statements made by men living in certain selected districts of London in March 1887, BPP 1887 LXXI.

Edward Higgs, Life, death and statistics: civil registration, censuses and the work of the General Register Office, 1837–1952 (Hatfield, 2004).

Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London. A study in the relationship between classes in Victorian Society (Harmondsworth, 1984).

A. M. McBriar, An Edwardian mixed doubles: the Bosanquets versus the Webbs. A study in British social policy, 1890–1929 (Oxford, 1987).

TNA RG 19/44A. Census of Eastbourne 1909.

TNA RG 19/44B. Census of Eastbourne 1909.

TNA RG ??/??. GRO Outwards Letter Book, Volume 3.

Return of population enumerated in Civil Parishes in the Administrative county of London, Mar. 1896, pursuant to Section 3 of London (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1894, BPP 1896 LXXII (C.8265) [View this document: Return of population enumerated in Civil Parishes in Administrative county of London, Mar. 1896, pursuant to Section 3 of London (Equalisation of Rates) Act, 1894]

Pat Thane, The foundations of the Welfare State (London: Longman, 1982).