Census enumerators' books

Edward Higgs

In the case of the early censuses in England and Wales, from 1801 to 1831, the local overseers of the poor and the parish clergy were responsible for the collection of information on the ground. Their job was merely to send Rickman the raw numbers of people, houses, and baptisms, marriages and burials, and the numbers of people in occupational categories or age groups, in their parishes (Higgs, 1989, 5–7). This was done on a series of forms that no longer survive (Higgs, 1989, 114–19), although their contents were reproduced in their entirety in the published Census Reports of the period (e.g. Abstract of Answers and Returns under Act for taking Account of Population of GB, 1801).

When the General Register Office (GRO) took over census taking in 1840, it was decided to expand the scope of the questions asked in the census, and to obtain this information on named individuals via a schedule given to each householder by local enumerators. The householder had to supply information on each member of his or her household on Census Night. It was the duty of enumerators to collect these schedules, and then to copy them into pre-printed enumerators' books. In the process of doing so, the enumerators may often have standardised the original data in the household schedule. The books were supposedly checked by the local registrar, and superintendent registrar, and then forwarded to the Census Office in London. They were accompanied by the relevant household schedules, which were used to check the enumerators' books and then destroyed. The census enumerators' books formed the working documents from which clerks abstracted the details that were published in the Victorian Census Reports (Higgs, 1989, 10–15). They are also the original records that form the basis of so much genealogical and historical research today. From 1911 onwards the analysis at the Census Office was done directly from the household schedules, and the production of census enumerators' books ceased.

The format of the enumerators' books changed from census to census (Higgs, 1989, 106–8) but typically they began with a page on which the enumerator had to describe the enumeration district and the administrative units covered in his book. This might be in terms of a list of streets, or a description of the boundaries of the enumeration district. This was followed by pages giving directions for filling up the book, and an example of how this should be done. There were then pages of pre-printed tables for the insertion by the enumerator of various pieces of information on the numbers of houses, households, individuals, and so on, on every page, or in every administrative division. Next came a page for declarations to be signed by the enumerator, the local registrar, and the superintendent registrar. The pages for the nominal data then followed, and there were different numbers of pages for this depending on the size of the enumerator's district (Higgs, 1989, 27–31). Many institutions were treated as normal households, but there were also special enumeration books for large institutions, and special schedules for ships (Higgs, 1989, 37–46). Since the enumerators' books were the working documents for the process of census abstraction, they were heavily corrected and annotated, especially by the clerks in the Census Office in London.

The heads of information in the enumerators' books also changed over time, although there was a core of standard questions throughout the Victorian period (Higgs, 1989, 109–26). In 1841 information was given on addresses; whether houses were inhabited or not, or being built; names; age and sex; profession, trade, employment or of independent means; and where people were born in terms of whether born in the same county, or in Scotland, Ireland, or 'foreign parts'. In 1851 more details were required, the headings being: schedule number, address, name, relationship to head of family, marital condition, age and sex, 'rank, profession, or occupation, birthplace (parish and county, or country), and information on medical disabilities. Other headings were subsequently introduced, such as a question on whether one was an employer, employed, or self-employed in 1891. In 1901 information also had to be given on the number of rooms occupied by the household if less than five, and if people were working at home. Each page for nominal information was made up of a series of rows, one for each member of the household, bisected by columns for the individual pieces of information to be supplied on each person. The ends of houses, and of households within them, were marked by hatched lines.

The original returns are now held by The National Archives in London, and are made available at its Family Records Centre either as microfilm or microfiche. Specific entries can also be obtained from the 1901 census online (www.census.pro.gov.uk). The National Archives has also sold copies of the returns to local record offices and local history libraries, where they can now be consulted (Gibson and Hampson, 1994; Familia website).

REFERENCES

Census of Great Britain, 1801, Abstract, presented to the House of Commons, of the answers and returns made to the Population Act of 41st Geo. III &c., BPP 1801 VI (140). [View this document: Population abstract, 1801]

Famalia website: www.familia.org.uk.

Jeremy Gibson and Elizabeth Hampson, Census Returns 1841–1891 in Microform: a Directory of Local Holdings in Great Britain; Channel Islands; Isle of Man (Birmingham: Federation of Family History Societies, 1994).

Edward Higgs, Making sense of the census. The manuscript returns for England and Wales, 1801–1901 (London, 1989).