The United Kingdom Census of 1851 recorded the people residing in every household on the night of Sunday 30 March 1851, and was the second of the
UK censuses to include details of household members. However, this census added considerably to the fields recorded in the earlier
1841 UK Census, providing additional details of ages, relationships and origins, making the 1851 census a rich source of information for both
demographers
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
and
genealogists
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinsh ...
.
The 1851 census for
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
was opened to public inspection at the
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...
in 1912 (the 100-year closure rule was not in effect at the time), and is now available from
The National Archives
National archives are central archives maintained by countries. This article contains a list of national archives.
Among its more important tasks are to ensure the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both ...
as part of class HO 107. The 1851 census for
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
is available at the
General Register Office for Scotland
The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptio ...
. An 1851 census was taken in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
but most of the records have been destroyed; those that remain are held by the
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is situated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a division within the Engaged Communities Group of the Department for Communities (DfC).
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is disti ...
(for those counties of Ireland which remain in the UK) or the
National Archives of Ireland
The National Archives of Ireland ( ga, Cartlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is the official repository for the state records of Ireland. Established by the National Archives Act 1986, taking over the functions of the State Paper Office (founded 17 ...
(for those counties now in the
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
).
The total population of England, Wales and Scotland was recorded as 21,121,967.
The census was held concurrently with a census of religion in England and Wales, which recorded religious institutions and attendance at religious services on 30 March. The returns for this are also held at The National Archives as class HO 129.
Developments from previous censuses
The 1851 census was the first to record the full details of birth location for individuals. Where 1841 had only recorded if an individual was born in a
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
, the 1851 census states the county and
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
or town of birth as well. The purpose behind asking for this information was to answer one of the critical questions of the time which was the rate and intensity of migration from rural to urban areas. The results confirmed there had been a significant shift from the countryside to the towns.
The 1851 census was the first to record each person's
marital status
Civil status, or marital status, are the distinct options that describe a person's relationship with a significant other. ''Married'', ''single'', ''divorced'', and ''widowed'' are examples of civil status.
''Civil status'' and ''marital status ...
and relationship to the head of the household, as well as details of disability being recorded—with a field for recording the information that an individual was "blind, deaf or imbecile". Each individual's exact age was also recorded (to the nearest year) rather than rounding adult ages down to the nearest five years.
In 1851, much greater detail was asked about people's occupations than in previous censuses. This enabled government analysis of occupations into "classes" and "sub-classes".
Masters in trade and manufacture were asked to state the word "master" after the description of their occupation and to state the number of men employed on the day of the census. A full transcript of the 1851 Census can be found online.
Full documentation for the 1851 population census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the
North Atlantic Population Project
The North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) is a collaboration of historical demographers in Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden to produce a massive census microdata collection for the North Atlantic Region in the l ...
.
Census of religion
The Government also conducted a census in England and Wales of churches and chapels, endowments, sittings, attendance at religious services on Sunday 30 March 1851 and average numbers during the preceding twelve months. Reports were collected from local ministers. The attendance count was 10,896,066 (64%) out of a population of 17.9 million. There were 5,292,551 attending Church of England services, 4,536,264 attending the other Protestant churches, and 383,630 attending Catholic services.
[Mann 1854.] This was a unique experiment, not repeated at any later census.
The religious census returns are now held in
The National Archives
National archives are central archives maintained by countries. This article contains a list of national archives.
Among its more important tasks are to ensure the accessibility and preservation of the information produced by governments, both ...
as class HO 129.
Government analysis
Since the 1841 Census the population of Ireland had dropped by 1.7 million due to mass starvation caused by the
Great Famine, as well as emigration abroad.
The additional information on ages and occupations permitted considerable contemporary analysis of the census data for England and Wales. Not only were 332 different occupations analysed by age group, but they were also correlated with death records from
civil registration
Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events (births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differen ...
, allowing statisticians, led by
William Farr
William Farr CB (30 November 1807 – 14 April 1883) was a British epidemiologist, regarded as one of the founders of medical statistics.
Early life
William Farr was born in Kenley, Shropshire, to poor parents. He was effectively adopted by ...
, "to compare the living in each well defined occupation with the number dying registered at the corresponding ages; and thus to determine the influence of employment on health and life".
Examples from his conclusions include:
Genealogical value
The 1851 census is seen as one of the key sources for British genealogical research of the nineteenth century. The information about the relationship of individuals to the head of household enables relationships between people to be established accurately. Furthermore, the inclusion of exact ages and details of each person's place of birth, provides the researcher with a pointer to the location of birth or baptism records. In many cases, this allows the researcher to pin-down the parish of birth with relative ease: in other cases, the situation is not so simple.
An example of the problems encountered is that the census may accurately record a person's place of birth, although their baptism (which may be the only record relating to their birth) may be in a different place. Conversely, a person may have been born and baptised in one place, but brought up in a different place, which is the one they remember as their place of origin and duly record it as such in the census. A further problem is that the information about a household was normally provided to the
census enumerator
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
by the head of household—and heads of household varied in the conscientiousness with which they elicited information from each person in the household. In cases where a person was born outside the country, only the country of origin is given (not the location within the country). Hence, for example, there are many people in the English census whose place of birth is given simply as "Scotland".
Data availability and publication
The 1851 schedules have been digitized and are available at subscription websites. The schedules are of high importance to genealogists since 1851 was the first year in which a place of birth or parish was recorded.
Microdata Microdata can mean:
* Microdata (statistics), a statistical term for individual response data in surveys and censuses
* Microdata (HTML), a specification for semantic markup in HTML
* Microdata Corporation
Microdata Corporation was an American ...
from the 1851 population census are freely available through the
North Atlantic Population Project
The North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) is a collaboration of historical demographers in Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden to produce a massive census microdata collection for the North Atlantic Region in the l ...
.
Religious census
The religious census returns (The National Archives, HO 129) are available to download free of charge as part of the Digital Microfilm project.
The returns for a number of counties have been published by county
record societies and similar bodies.
*
*
*
*
*
* (2 vols.)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* . . (3 vols.)
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
See also
*
Census in the United Kingdom
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 (during the Second World War), Ireland in 1921/Northern Ireland in 1931,https://www.nisra.gov. ...
*
List of United Kingdom censuses
The census in the United Kingdom is decennial, that is, held every ten years, although there is provision in the Census Act 1920 for a census to take place at intervals of five years or more. There are actually three separate censuses in the U ...
{{Census in the United Kingdom
1851
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
March 1851 events