Content associated with: Census (England) Act, 1880
Census of England and Wales, 1881
Edward Higgs
The 1881 census, held on 3/4 April of that year, was the first of the decennial enumerations undertaken by the General Register Office (GRO) under the leadership of Sir Brydges Henniker (Registrar General) and Dr William Ogle (Superintendent of Statistics). Yet despite this change at the top of the GRO, the census and the reports it generated were similar in many ways to that of 1861 and 1871. Householders were to supply the same information for each individual in their households: name, relationship to head of family, marital status, age, sex, occupation, birthplace, and medical disabilities (Higgs, 1989, 124). Moreover, no completely new enquiry was to be introduced into the census of England and Wales until that of 1891 (Higgs, 1989, 15–17, 125). Indeed, the GRO in the late nineteenth century fought vigorously to prevent any expansion of the census, arguing that it wished to concentrate on improving the quality of the data it already collected (Higgs, 2004, 126–7). This contrasts with innovations in census taking and reporting in the period before 1861.
The Census reports in 1881 seem to have been even shorter than their immediate predecessors. The General Report in 1871 (Census of England and Wales, 1871, Vol. IV. General Report) contained 83 pages of text and 162 pages of tables, but that of 1881 had only 75 pages of text and 112 pages of tables (Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV. General Report). This might have reflected the inexperience of the new management team at the GRO, or a problem of resources. But there also seems to have been a general paralysis of the Office in the last two decades of the Victorian period, which may have reflected weak leadership. Certainly, the Annual reports of the Registrar General for these years also appear skimpier and more stereotyped than those of former decades (Higgs, 2004, 90–128; Szreter, 454–62).
The publishing history of the 1881 Census reports is slightly different to that of the 1871 volumes, although their overall structure is somewhat similar. The first volume to be published in 1881, contained preliminary tables giving the number of houses and populations in various administrative units, including counties, registration districts, and sanitary districts (Census of England and Wales, 1881, Preliminary report and tables of the population and houses...). The latter districts were new, having been set up by the Public Health Acts of 1874 and 1875. The rest of the Census reports for 1881 were all published in 1883. As in 1871, there were two Reports giving the areas, raw numbers of people and houses enumerated, both in registration district units, and older county units (Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. I. Area, houses, and population. Counties and Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. II. Area, houses, and population. Registration counties). Volume III contained more detailed tables relating to ages, civil conditions, occupations, birthplaces, and medical disabilities broken down by the various registration divisions of the country (Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. III. Ages, condition as to marriage, occupations and birth-places of the people).
These were followed by the General Report, a broad
discussion of the results with general tables (Census of England
and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV. General Report). This gave a
detailed discussion of the results respecting the characteristics
of individuals (sex, age, marital status, birthplaces, occupations
and medical disabilities), and of places (houses, population
densities, etc.). It also stressed the problems of large numbers of
administrative units that had to be handled — old counties,
parliamentary divisions, hundreds, civil and ecclesiastical
parishes, registration units, sanitary districts, etc (Census of
England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV. General Report,
3–5). This discursive treatment was then followed by two
appendices:
Appendix A — tables of data on the characteristics of
individuals and places;
Appendix B — the Census Act, and copies of schedules.
Lastly, there was a separate Report along similar lines for the 'Islands in the British Seas'— the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man (Census of England and Wales, 1881, Islands in the British Seas, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey).
REFERENCES
Census of England and Wales, 1871, Vol. IV. General Report BPP 1873 LXXI Pt. II. [View this document: General report, England and Wales. 1871]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Preliminary report and tables of the population and houses enumerated in England and Wales, and in the Islands in British Seas on 4th April 1881 BPP 1881 XCVI. [View this document: Preliminary report, England and Wales, 1881]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. I. Area, houses, and population. Counties BPP 1883 LXXVIII. [View this document: Population. England and Wales. Vol. I. [Ancient] counties, 1881]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. II. Area, houses, and population. Registration counties BPP 1883 LXXIX. [View this document: Population. England and Wales. Vol. II. Registration counties, 1881]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. III. Ages, condition as to marriage, occupations and birth-places of the people BPP 1883 LXXX. [View this document: Population, England and Wales. Vol. III. Age, marriage, occupation, birth-place, 1881]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV. General Report BPP 1883 LXXX.583. [View this document: England and Wales, Vol. IV. General report, 1881]
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Islands in the British Seas, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey BPP 1883 LXXX.707. [View this document: Islands in the British Seas, 1881]
Edward Higgs, Making sense of the census. The manuscript returns for England and Wales, 1801–1901 (London, 1989).
Edward Higgs, Life, death and statistics: civil registration, censuses and the work of the General Register Office, 1837–1952 (Hatfield, 2004).
Simon Szreter, 'The GRO and the public health movement in Britain 1837–1914', Social History of Medicine, 4 (1991), 454–62.