the census for local studies research

The Census for Local Studies ResearchProfessor Peter Reid

With a little help from

Cecil Frances Alexander

Family history

• Address• Name• Relationship to head• Age• Occupation• Where born• Lunatic, imbecile or idiot

All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small

Victorian Bethnal Green

Young and Wilmott. (1957) Family and Kinship in East London

MigrationHe made their glowing colours, He made their tiny wings.

• Census data on place of birth

• Only records location on the night of the census, not the duration of residence in a particular location

• Quantitative data with little context, other sources (e.g. narrative are more useful but less suitable for generalisations)

Little IrelandBetween 1841 - 1851 the Irish population of Scotland increased by 90%.

1851

Coatbridge - 35.8% Irish

Edinburgh – 6.5% Irish

Dumfries-shire – 5.9%

Glasgow had 29% of all Irish migrants settled in Scotland

Segregation or Integration?

“the census only indicates the place of birth and the place of residence on census night.' It does not record where else a person had lived since their birth, how long they had spent at their current address, or indeed how long they stayed there before moving elsewhere”.HIGGS, E. Making senses of the census (1989)

Migration

• Charles Malcolm• Born Sweden• Naturalized British

Subject 1889• Carl Malcolm Carlstrom,

born Landkrona, 1854, son of Carl Johan Carlstrom and Benedicta Elisabeth Hasselgren

Urbanisation In 1801 there was only London had a population of more than 100,000.

A century later 33 cities had over 100,000 residents.

The hidden migration

Urbanisation

Gender

• Education– Scholar or nothing

• Occupation – Seldom fully recorded– Textile industry– Domestic service

• ‘Widow’– as an occupation

Occupations: The rich man in castle, the poor man at his gate

• 1851 census summary tables grouped occupations (related to manufacturing)

• Classification of occupations within communities enables classification of communities– economic and industrial structures– physical landscape and environment– social zones– transport infrastructure

Tillott’s Classifcation• Thirteen categories, divided into:• Primary

– agriculture and fisheries

• Secondary – mining and manufacture

• Tertiary – law, banking, education, profession – but also servants

Tillott's Consolidated Classes

Consolidated Classes Primary Groups

I Upper class Groups 5a, 7a, 10a, 10b

II Intermediate - non-agricultural Groups 7b, 10c, 13

III Intermediate - agricultural Group 1

IV Skilled workers and similar Groups 2a, 3, 4, 5b, 6, 8, 9a

V Semi-skilled workers Groups 2b, 11

VI Domestic servants, semi-skilled Group 9b

VII Labourers and unskilled workers Groups 9c, 12

Source: Dennis Mills and Kevin Schürer eds., Local Communities in the Victorian Census Enumerators' Books, Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 1996, p. 144

Tillott's classification scheme has been widely used, and suits most

Social status: He made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate.

• The class structure

• No women working– except servants

• Private means

Cultural homogeneity (or hegemony)

Cultural homogeneity (or hegemony)

Homogeneity of societies at all levels, particular in farming or fishing communities

The CensusHe gave us eyes to see them, And lips that we might tell