Associated Content

Parliamentary Papers and other government publications relating to population

Matthew Woollard

The main bulk of material used in this project was published by government departments. The documents fall into two generic types: parliamentary papers and government publications. The difference between the two is subtle and depends on whether the document was presented to parliament or not. Parliamentary papers can be identified either by a command number or by its place in the multi-volumed series of parliamentary papers.

1. Parliamentary Papers

Most of the original material used in this project are 'Parliamentary Papers'. These are reports and papers which were ordered to be published by Parliament. They are also known as 'Command Papers', and are numbered sequentially in order of presentation to Parliament. For this period there are four separate series of command papers and they are distinguished by letters in front of the number.

1801–1868/9 no letter (497) or [497]
1870–1899 C. [C.616]
1899–1918 Cd. [Cd.6911]
1919–1956 Cmd. [Cmd. 1485]

Thus simply from the command number one can both identify a particular publication and get an idea of the sequence of publication. It is obviously important to include the correct abbreviation for the series, otherwise confusion can occur, e.g.,

Census of Ireland, 1871, Pt. III. General report, maps and diagrams, summary tables, appendices. BPP 1876 LXXXI [C. 1377]

Census of England and Wales, 1901, County of Hertford. BPP 1902 CXIX [Cd. 1377]

This system would be enough to identify most of the reports published in the nineteenth century, as the command number uniquely identifies these command papers. However, this ideal is shattered because for most of the nineteenth century papers which had been published during a parliamentary session were collected together and bound in volumes which were arranged thematically rather than by command number. These volumes, also known as Parliamentary Papers, are the main way in which most researchers have found the material on this site in the past, and thus provide the best mechanism for citing this material in a way which both non-users and users of this resource will find most useful. However, while simple at first, this method of citation can become more complicated.

As an example, command papers 1339 and 1399 were both bound together in the volume numbered XLIII for the parliamentary session of 1851. (It is important that the volume number is always rendered as a roman numeral.) As further assistance we add the 'author' and as the year and place of the relevant census. Thus we can cite these two command papers as:

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Forms and instructions prepared under the direction of one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, for the use of the persons employed in taking an account of the population of Great Britain. by virtue of the act of 13 and 14 Victoria, cap. 53. [1339].

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Tables of the population and houses in the divisions, registration counties, and districts of England and Wales; in the counties, cities, and burghs of Scotland; and in the islands in the British seas. [1399].

These citations are not complete. For further assistance to the user of the collections of parliamentary papers we need to add some indication of pagination. Binding two command papers in the same volume, each of which starts with the same page number (1) can cause confusion, especially when the command number is not visible on any of the bound pages.

This problem was partially resolved in the nineteenth century when a series of clerks hand wrote page numbers on the top right hand corner of each page of all the command papers which were bound together in series of parliamentary papers.

So for the two examples used above, and leaving the command number out we have:

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Forms and instructions prepared under the direction of one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, for the use of the persons employed in taking an account of the population of Great Britain. by virtue of the act of 13 and 14 Victoria, cap. 53. BPP 1851 XLIII 1–

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Tables of the population and houses in the divisions, registration counties, and districts of England and Wales; in the counties, cities, and burghs of Scotland; and in the islands in the British seas. BPP 1851 XLIII 73–

(The abbreviation BPP stands for British Parliamentary Papers — to prevent confusion with other series — the 1851 denotes the parliamentary session and XLIII is the volume number in that sequence — and in most libraries these are stamped on the outside of the volume — after this number is the handwritten page number.

The complete citation is as follows:

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Forms and instructions prepared under the direction of one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, for the use of the persons employed in taking an account of the population of Great Britain. by virtue of the act of 13 and 14 Victoria, cap. 53. BPP 1851 XLIII 1–. [1339].

This is perhaps a more complex form of citation than is ordinarily used by scholars, but it is the most complete citation, and provides the best possibility for anyone to track down a particular report.

Because some of these titles are rather long and unwieldy it is appropriate to shorten the title in some cases. This is achieved by using three points to denote where material is missing. So:

Census of Great Britain, 1851, Forms and instructions.... BPP 1851 XLIII 1–. [1339].

2. Government publications

From the early 1920s the publications of the Registrar-General, which include the census reports, were no longer deemed part of the Parliamentary Paper series, though they are considered 'government publications' and were published by HMSO. This means that these volumes are much harder to find as they are not part of the usual Parliamentary Paper series. They are also harder to cite, because they have neither a command number nor a place in the parliamentary paper series.

We suggest that the best method of citing these government publications is:

Census of England and Wales, 1961, Ecclesiastical areas (England) (London, HMSO, 1933).

It is worth mentioning that many of these reports could be identified uniquely by their printers' reference, but since no library keeps these, title and date of publication are the only identifying features. Between 1922 and 1984 a series of catalogues entitled Government publications was published by HMSO, which may aid identification of these reports, and a Cumulative index to the annual catalogues of Her Majesty's Stationery Office publications, 1922–1972 was published in 1976.

3. Additional notes on the Registrar-General's Reports (England and Wales).

For the period 1837–1854, the Registrar-General's reports for England and Wales were published in two versions. The Parliamentary Paper series were published in quarto (approximately 9 by 12 inches (23 x 30 cm)); while the 'registrar-general's' series were published in octavo (5½ by 8½ inches or 14 x 21 cm.) In essence, the latter series can be considered to be government publications as they were published by the government but were not presented to parliament.

Apart from their different layouts and the fact that the octavo volumes contain greater numbers of pages, there are other differences between these editions. Some tables were only published in the quarto volumes, as they could not fit onto the pages of the octavo volumes and some octavo volumes have errors corrected from the quarto volumes. In general the quarto volumes were published first, often within the parliamentary year subsequent to the reporting year. Fuller details of these alterations can be found in Higgs (2004), 221–228. After 1854 only a single edition of these reports were published. The best manner to distinguish between the two 'editions' is through citation. Thus:

General Register Office, Eighth annual report of the Registrar-General for 1845 (London, 1849).

General Register Office, Eighth annual report of the Registrar-General for 1845, BPP 1847–1848 XXV [967].

The latter reference is obviously to the Parliamentary Paper series while the former refers to the Registrar-General's series.

REFERENCES

R. M. Blackmore, comp., Cumulative index to the annual catalogues of Her Majesty's Stationery Office publications, 1922–1972 (2 vols., Washington [D.C.]/Inverness, 1976).

H. J. Dubester, National censuses and vital statistics in Europe, 1918–1939. An annotated bibliography with 1940–1947 supplement (Washington, Library of Congress, 1948).

D. V. Glass and P. A. M. Taylor, Population and emigration (Dublin, 1976).

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

Interdepartmental committee on social and economic research, Guides to official sources. No. 2. Census reports of Great Britain, 1801–1931 (London, 1951).

Office of Population Censuses and Surveys/General Register Office, Edinburgh, Guide to census reports. Great Britain, 1801–1966 (London, 1977).