Matthew Woollard
with Mark Allen
1881 census for England
and Wales, the Channel
Isles and the Isle of Man:
introductory user guide
v.0.3
Distributed by
The Data Archive, University of Essex,
Colchester, 1999
2
© Matthew Woollard, 1997, 1998, 1999.
This version distributed 1999 by
The Data Archive
University of Essex
Colchester
Essex CO3 4SQ
Documentation v0.3
3
1881 census database
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.4.1
0.4.2
0.4.2.1
0.4.2.2
0.4.2.3
0.4.2.4
0.4.2.5
0.4.2.6
0.5
0.6
0.6.1
0.6.1.1
0.6.1.2
0.7
0.7.1
0.7.2
0.7.3
0.7.4
0.8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
19.1
19.2
19.3
20
21
22
22.1
22.1.1
22.1.2
22.1.3
22.1.4
22.1.5
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction
Conventions
Introduction to census geography
Enumerators’ books
Page numbering in 1881 CEBs
Ancillary information in 1881 CEBs
Description of enumeration district
Instructions to the enumerator
Example page
Enumerators’ tables page
Abstract of totals page
Declaration page
Creation of database
Contents
Data included in CEBs and not in database
Schedule numbers
Welsh language returns
General information
Missing information
Deleted information
Unclear information
Material in another hand
Restructuring the county dataset for use
FILE
POS
REF
BATCH
SOURCE
PIECE
FOLIO
PAGE
SFOLIO
SPAGE
FILM
COUNTRY
COUNTYENU
COUNTYSTD
CITY
PARISH
REGDISTRICT
HAMLET
ADDRESS
Address basics
Deletions
Other information
HOUSEENU
HOUSESTD
SURNAME
Surname basics
Interpretation
Same family/different name
Missing names
Initials
Punctuation
6
6
7
7
9
9
10
10
10
10
11
11
11
11
14
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
16
16
16
16
17
17
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
21
21
22
24
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
4
22.2
22.2.1
22.2.2
23
23.1
23.2
23.2.1
23.2.2
23.2.3
23.3
23.3.1
23.3.2
23.3.3
23.3.4
23.4
24
24.1
24.2
24.3
24.4
24.5
24.6
24.6.1
24.6.2
24.6.3
24.6.4
24.7
24.8
25
26
26.1
26.2
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
33.1
33.2
33.3
33.4
33.5
33.6
34
34.1
34.2
34.2.1
34.2.2
34.2.3
34.3
34.3.1
34.3.2
34.3.3
34.4
Documentation v0.3
Other information found in surname column
Uninhabited houses and houses being built
Institution and vessel information
FNAME
First name basics
First names
Initials and abbreviations
Unnamed children
Second names/maiden names etc.
Additions to first names
Twins
Titles
Appellations
Other material
Initials
RELENU
Heads of household
Unusual relationships
Pre-head members
Split batches
Tick marks
Lodgers/boarders
Lodgers (1)
Lodgers (2)
Lodgers (3)
Lodgers (4)
Other relationships
Abbreviations and standardisation
RELSTD
MARENU
Abbreviations and standardisation
Missing information
MARSTD
SEXENU
AGEENU
AGETYPEENU
AGETYPESTD
AGEDAYS
OCCUP
Basics
Transposition
Abbreviations
Wives, etc.
Additional numbers
Brackets
BIRCOUNTYENU
Incorrect information
Non-British birthplaces
British subjects
Born at sea
Islands in the seas
Counties
London and Edinburgh
City counties
Chester and Lancaster
Unknowns
26
26
26
26
26
26
26
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
27
28
28
28
28
29
29
29
29
29
30
30
30
30
31
34
34
34
35
35
35
36
36
36
36
36
37
37
37
37
38
38
38
39
39
39
39
39
39
39
40
40
5
1881 census database
35
BIRCOUNTYSTD
36
BIRPARISH
37
SORT
38
INFIRM
39
NOTEF
40
The ‘note files’
41
FILE
42
POS
43
REF
44
NOTETYPE
45
NOTEFIELD
45.1
Address
45.2
Age
45.3
Birth county
45.4
Birth parish
45.5
Condition
45.6
Entire record
45.7
Forename
45.8
Infirmity/handicapped
45.9
Miscellaneous
45.10
Occupation
45.11
Relationship
45.12
Surname
Appendix A Geographical boundaries in the 1881 census
A.0
Introduction
A.1
England and Wales
A.1.1
Parishes
A.1.1.1
Ancient parish
A.1.1.2
Ecclesiastical parish or district
A.1.1.3
Civil parish (or township)
A.1.1.4
Parish Duplications
A.1.2
Town, village or hamlet
A.1.3
City (municipal borough) and parliamentary borough
A.1.4
Sanitary districts (urban and rural)
A.1.5
Registration sub-district
A.1.6
Registration districts
A.1.7
Counties
A.1.7.1
Ancient county (aka the ‘county proper’)
A.1.7.2
Registration county (aka Poor Law county)
A.1.7.3
Problems
A.1.8
Registration divisions
Appendix B Information relating to Wales
Welsh returns
Appendix C Information relating to vessels
Appendix D Information relating to institutions
Appendix E County and Country Code
Appendix F Select Bibliography
40
41
41
42
42
42
42
43
43
43
44
44
44
45
45
45
45
46
46
47
47
47
48
49
49
49
49
49
50
50
51
52
52
53
53
53
54
54
54
55
55
57
57
57
59
60
64
6
0
Documentation v0.3
Preface and acknowledgements
Users of this guide should be aware that it is in a process of flux. It is recommended
that until this guide gains a version number of at least 1.0 it is not stable. Updated
versions will only be sent out to those who order data after the updated version is
produced. However the most recent version will be able to be accessed by searching
in BIRON (http://biron.essex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/biron) for study number 3643 and
choosing the user guide button.
The main reason for this flux is that not all the data had been received by the History
Data Service (HDS) at the time of writing, and by no means all of the available data
has been fully examined by the authors. For this reason, there is scope for errors and
omissions within this guide, which should be considered by any user.
Comments on this documentation will be welcomed by the authors, who can be
contacted, only on matters relating to the documentation at [email protected].
Questions concerning the data and its format should be addressed directly to the
Data Archive ([email protected]). Neither of the authors are employed by the
Data Archive or the HDS.
We are grateful to the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) for allowing us
permission to use material previously published by them in the form of instructions
to the transcribers and evaluators of the machine-readable 1881 Census.
We are also grateful to Sean Townsend of the History Data Service for his comments
on an earlier draft of this documentation. Arne Solli, on secondment from the
University of Bergen, Norway, provided valuable information and advice stemming
from his data preparation. Dr Kevin Schürer of the History Department at the
University of Essex also critically read an early draft and assisted materially in the
final form of version 0.1. Dr Edward Higgs and Dr Paul Laxton commented on
version 0.2.
0.1
Introduction
The 1881 Census database is a flat-file database. Each record contains 39 fields,
corresponding to information contained within the Census Enumerators’ Books
(hereafter CEB) for the 1881 Census and the information added to the database by its
creators. This section of the documentation describes the ‘provenance’ and meaning
of each field, including details of all the alterations/standardisations performed
during the transcription and the creation of the machine-readable version of the
census and post-processing carried out by the History Data Service. The fields are
listed below in Section 0.6. All subsequent sections in this documentation are
numbered in accordance with the listing in that section.
1881 census database
0.2
7
Conventions
All quotations or material intended to be illustrative of the contents of the CEBs are
contained in double quotation marks. All contents of the database (or illustrative
material suggestive of it) are reproduced in computer type-face. References are to
items given in the bibliography.
0.3
Introduction to census geography
An understanding of the various geographical units into which Britain was divided
for administrative purposes in 1881 is of vital importance to anyone undertaking
research using this database. In spite of the fact that many of the geographical
entities into which the country was divided were commonly understood, others
were not, and the treatment in the CEBs of some boundaries caused the compilers of
the census reports problems:
The point in which the enumeration books … were found to be most deficient,
and to show the most serious amount of inaccuracy, was the matter of
boundaries.… The boundaries of civil and ecclesiastical parishes, of municipal
and parliamentary boroughs, of urban and rural sanitary districts, of registration
counties and counties in the ordinary sense, not to mention the numerous other
sub-divisions of the country, overlap and intersect each other with such
complexity that the enumerators and local registrars in a vast number of cases
failed altogether to unravel their intricacy.1
Brief definitions of each the various geographical and administrative units into
which England and Wales was divided at the time of each census can be found in
Higgs (1996, pp. 188–202). This section describes in detail each of those areas that are
relevant to the 1881 census and how they are dealt with in the database. Some units
are noted at the top of every page of every CEB, whilst others are taken or inferred
from description pages (see Section 0.4.2.1 below).
Between 1841 and 1981 the census (of England and Wales) was carried out by the
Registrar General. After the foundation of the General Register Office in 1837
England and Wales were divided into registration districts in order to co-ordinate
the collection of registration data on births, marriages and deaths. In 1881 there were
630 registration districts in England and Wales, each headed by a superintendent
registrar.
A registration district originally comprised of a group of Poor Law Unions, although
by 1881 a number of changes had occurred which meant that they were not strictly
identical to those created in 1837. Each enumeration book had the name and number
of the registration district (see Section 0.4.2.1 below) penned onto it. Registration
districts sometimes crossed ancient (or administrative) county boundaries, but never
1
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV, General Report, BPP 1883, LXXX.1, p.3.
8
Documentation v0.3
registration county boundaries. (Registration counties are an amalgamation of
complete registration districts.)
For administrative purposes registration districts were sub-divided into registration
sub-districts and a resident registrar was appointed for each one. These sub-districts
also sometimes crossed the borders of the ancient counties. The registration subdistrict in which an individual was enumerated is not given in the database;
however it can be ascertained from the census reports [vol. 2] using the information
on registration district and parish of enumeration. The registration sub-district is a
useful geographical unit for research as statistical data is almost always given to at
least this level in the Registrar General’s Annual Reports.
For the collection of the census data registration sub-districts were divided into
enumeration districts (ED) each of which was the responsibility of an enumerator.
These enumeration districts are one of the two basic building blocks which the 1881
administrative boundaries can be pieced together. The other is the civil parish.
The civil parish was a purely secular administrative unit. Many are villages or
hamlets in themselves, although in urban areas there may well have been many civil
parishes in a single town or city. As these units are closely linked to the system of
poor relief (generally speaking, each parish had an Overseer of the Poor) they are the
basic building blocks of registration districts and hence registration counties. In 1881
the Registrar General wrote that there were 34,711 EDs, 2,175 registration subdistricts and 14,926 civil parishes, while reporting population figures on some 15,297
geographic units, some of which were non-parochial moorlands.
Since registration counties and ancient counties are not identical, civil parishes
frequently cross the borders of ancient counties. This has caused complications
within the structure of the database which are outlined below. It was not uncommon
for civil parishes to be split between more than one registration sub-district. This
was particularly common in urban areas where a town or city may have been split
into several sub-districts.
All of this must be considered in the light of shifting boundaries. Not all of the
boundaries of these geographical units remain unaltered over the period 1837–1901.
Enumeration districts, for example, were frequently changing to fit in with other
alterations, but also to make the collection of the census simpler as EDs were devised
for information collection and not information analysis. These shifting boundaries
also mean that by 1881 civil parishes were not consistently fully within registration
sub-districts. For example, the civil parish of Egham can be found in the registration
sub-districts of Egham and Windsor. (Also, the civil parish of Egham was in the
registration county of Berkshire, but in the ancient county of Surrey.) Similarly the
parish of St. Paul’s Deptford was wholly within the registration sub-district of St.
Paul Deptford, but was found in the ancient counties of Surrey and Kent.
The following section describes the geographical information contained within the
CEBs and points towards other geographical information found in the database.
9
1881 census database
0.4
Enumerators’ books
This documentation refers frequently to the census enumerators’ books. It is worth
considering—before describing the database—a CEB and its relationship to other
CEBs and the geographical regions it relates to.
0.4.1 Page numbering in 1881 CEBs
The method of numbering of page numbers in CEBs is often misunderstood. First,
each enumeration book contains a sequence of pages; the smallest containing 16
rising to a maximum of 80 (in multiples of 8) (see Higgs, p.23). When all the
enumerators’ books for a district had been collected together after the census they
were arranged in order of registration district. At this point, first they were
numbered (see Section 0.4.2.1) and latterly folio numbers were stamped onto the top
right-hand corner of every other page.
Given that the first folio number is stamped on the first right-hand page of the first
book in the sequence, it follows (from the section below) that there are three folio
numbers which represent the ancillary matter. Only on the fourth folio number are
there any transcriptions of schedules, where the page numbering on the CEBs proper
starts. Therefore, in a sequence of CEB folio numbers there are frequent gaps of
three. An example of this sequencing is given below for part of the registration subdistrict of St. Mary Redcliff in Bristol.
Folios
1–3
4–12
13–15
16–22
23–25
26–35
36–38
39–50
51–53
54–63
64–66
67–80
81–83
84–96
97–99
100–110
111–113
114–127
128–130
131–145
Pages
Parish of enumeration
1–12
Bristol St. Thomas
1–14
Bristol St. Thomas
1–19
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–23
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–19
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–27
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–26
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–22
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–27
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
1–30
Bristol St. Mary Redcliff
The use of these numbers means that, from the database, one can provide a reference
which is unique to around 25 records—f.4 p.7. In this case the relevant piece number
is 2465 and as this is the 1881 census, the reference RG/11 2465 f.4. p.7 will allow
other users to quickly find the record which you are referring to and, if you are
studying individuals will help you find the individuals in the original CEBs rapidly.
10
Documentation v0.3
0.4.2 Ancillary information in 1881 CEBs
For every CEB there are six pages of material before the beginning of the
transcription of the data collected from the schedules. These six pages, in sequence
are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Description of enumeration district;
General instructions to the enumerator;
Example page;
Enumerators’ tables page;
Abstract of totals page;
Declaration page.
0.4.2.1
Description of enumeration district
The description page is the first in the sequence of ancillary pages within a CEB. It
contains information on:
•
•
•
•
•
Superintendent registrar’s district;
Registrar’s sub-district;
Enumeration district number;
Name of enumerator;
Description of the enumeration district (which should usually include the name
of parish(s) enumerated).
It also contains, usually written in thick pencil in the middle of the top of the page a
number. For example 615/1, which gives the number of the registration sub-district
(in this case Forden in Montgomeryshire) with the number of enumeration book
underneath. The 1 here means that this book is the first in the sequence.
Only three items of information on this page were transferred to the database. The
superintendent registrar’s district, the county (often inferred from the registrar’s subdistrict) and the parish. (It should be noted that the Isle of Man, and the Channel
Islands had no superintendent-registrar’s districts so this field is empty in the
database.)
0.4.2.2
Instructions to the enumerator
The instructions to the enumerator provide no information to the database; however,
we recommend that users make themselves aware of these instructions which
provide an insight into the data which is contained within the database.
0.4.2.3
Example page
Similarly, the example page provides no information to the database, and we
recommend users of the database to inspect the example page to see how the
enumerator was meant to complete his enumeration book.
1881 census database
0.4.2.4
11
Enumerators’ tables page
This page contains four tables which were created for the purpose of publishing a
report on the population of the country as quickly as possible for the purposes of
publishing the preliminary report. (In 1881 this was Preliminary report and tables of
population and houses for England and Wales, and in islands in British seas on 4 April 1881
BPP 1881 XCVI 1–.)
Tables 1 and 2 on this page of the CEBs give the numbers of persons temporarily
absent and the numbers of those not usually resident. (The former is not a reliable
indication of the actual number of inhabitants of a place.) Table 3, which was also
completed by the enumerator, gives the number of schedules delivered, the number
of houses (and whether inhabited, uninhabited or in the process of building) and the
numbers of men and women enumerated. The final table, which should have been
completed by the registrar, breaks these figures down into different geographical
entities. None of this information has been used in the database, however, we
suggest that users of this database examine this page for relevant CEBs when
necessary.
0.4.2.5
Abstract of totals page
This page contains an abstract of totals of the pages which follow it in the CEB. For
each page of CEB, the enumerator had to write the number of schedules, the number
of houses (again, whether inhabited, uninhabited or building), and the number of
men and women listed on each page. This page would have assisted the enumerator
in filling in the tables on the previous page, and acts as a check on the remainder of
the book. None of the information on this page has been entered into the database,
though they should have been examined by the transcriber.
0.4.2.6
Declaration page
The declaration page contains three signatures, those of the enumerator, the registrar
and the superintendent registrar (all dated). Each signatory declares that he has
either performed the work allotted to him or that his subordinate has achieved his
task competently. Again none of the information on this page has been added to the
database.
0.5
Creation of database
Before considering the contents of the database it is essential to understand, at least
in part, the processes that took place in order to create the database.
This section will describe briefly the process by which the database was created.
Further details can be found in Young, 1994 and Woollard, 1996. Once it had been
decided that the whole of the 1881 census for England and Wales was to be made
machine-readable—initially Scotland was not included in the project—each extant
CEB was microfilmed. Hard copies were made of each microfilm, and broken down
into manageable batches. A total of just over 45,000 batches were made which
12
Documentation v0.3
roughly equates to the number of CEBs. Each of these batches was given a unique
identifier; a batch transmission form was also attached. These batches were sent to a
variety of groups and organisations, to be transcribed. Each batch was transcribed
twice, after which a checker compared the two transcriptions to eliminate errors or
make judgements on illegible entries. The batches were then forwarded to a
management centre, where a further check was made. This further checking
procedure was known as ‘evaluation’ and this term will be used in this context in the
remainder of this documentation. From the management centre, the corrected
transcriptions were then sent to a number of data entry centres, where the
transcriptions were made machine-readable. (It was originally planned that every
batch would be data entered twice, one keyboard operator typing over the
previously entered data. This may have occurred in many instances, but there are
obvious indications within the database that data entry only occurred one. For
example, it is extremely unlikely that two data entry operators would mis-key the
same incorrect letter in a word.)
The computer program used by the GSU automatically added some information to
the data including, for example, the field named REF (described below, Section 3).
Once input, the transcription sheets along with the machine-readable version were
returned to the project management centre where an audit was performed. (Usually
this was performed by checking the quality of the data entry.) Once the audit was
performed the machine-readable data was sent to Salt Lake City where indexing and
formatting took place.
It is important to keep in mind that that the original aim of the project was not to
create a database of the 1881 Census but to create a microfiche index of the
population of the Great Britain. The work was created for genealogists rather than
historians, and the importance of keeping the whole of the source in a format as near
to its original as possible was not always considered necessary by both the creators
and those involved in the production of the database. This means that integral parts
of the original CEBs may have been lost—it is not always clear whether the indexing
procedure has always kept the records within the CEBs in their original order,
(though it should be possible to reconstruct this in those places where it has not been
kept).
The data was, after production of the microfiche, supplied to the History Data
Service at the University of Essex for distribution. Data was made available to the
HDS on a county-by-county basis and it was initially distributed on such a basis.
However, now the data is distributed on a piece basis (representing groups of CEBs).
This decision means that the datafiles distributed are relatively small. We strongly
suggest that, at present, any user who wishes to use datasets for other than simple
genealogical purposes should only consider using whole counties, though they are
less manageable. This document will occasionally refer to ‘county datafiles’ which
refer to the county-by-county nature of the original datafile. However, this can be
understood, in most cases to refer, to any subset of data distributed by the HDS.
13
1881 census database
It is also important to note that the data was supplied to the HDS in a GEDCOMtype format, which has been transformed into the comma-separated, quotedelimited text file which accompanies this documentation. An example of this
format is found below.
0
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
2
2
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
2
INDI
RFN
BATC
SOUR
SOUR
PIEC
FOLI
PAGE
SFOL
SPAG
FILM
CENS
CTRY
CO
CODE
NAME
PARI
REGD
HAML
ADDR
HDOH
ENU
STD
SURN
FORE
REL
ENU
STD
COND
ENU
STD
SEX
AGE
AGE
DAYS
OCCU
BIRT
CTRY
SORT
CTY
PARI
2550-67-2-76
B00166-6
RG/11 2550
2550
67
2
67$
2$
1341615
045
gls
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Horsley
Stroud
Nailsworth
Market St Nailsworth
//
Self
EVANS
Jeremiah Lloyd
Head
Head
Mar
M
M
41
14965
Grocer
Glamorgan
W
GLA
Glamorganshire
0
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
2
2
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
2
INDI
RFN
BATC
SOUR
SOUR
PIEC
FOLI
PAGE
SFOL
SPAG
FILM
CENS
CTRY
CO
CODE
NAME
PARI
REGD
HAML
ADDR
HDOH
STD
SURN
FORE
REL
ENU
STD
COND
ENU
STD
SEX
AGE
AGE
DAYS
OCCU
BIRT
CTRY
SORT
CTY
PARI
2550-67-2-78
B00166-6
RG/11 2550
2550
67
2
67$
2$
1341615
045
gls
GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Horsley
Stroud
Nailsworth
Market St Nailsworth
EVANS, Jeremiah Lloyd
EVANS
Eliza
Wife
Wife
Mar
M
F
36
13140
--Gloucestershire
E
GLS
Horsley
It is from this format that the HDS and researchers in the History Department at the
University of Essex have transformed the data into the format which is currently
available.
The collection and subsequent despatch of the data by the GSU in these county files
is significant for another reason; a problem which relates to the boundaries of
counties. As the Registrar General and his census office staff were reliant on the local
registrars to ensure that those enumerated were in areas within their juridstriction,
some errors in enumeration may have been made. Parish boundaries, for example,
do not always follow county boundaries. The GSU solution to this problem, has on
occasion, been to include records relating to individuals residing in parishes which
14
Documentation v0.3
are split over two counties within both county datafiles! For genealogical purposes
this is unproblematic, but for examination of the social and economic structure of a
county with this dataset it may be significant. Furthermore, the GSU has also
duplicated person records where the transcribers had significant difficulties in
discerning the correct spelling of a surname. Two records for each individual
concerned will be found in the database, identical in every respect, except for the
REF field and the surname field. (This also occurs for problematic first names.) (See
Section 3 below.)
This format is also significant because of ‘header’ records which precede a group of
records but don’t contain information about an individual. This type of record is
discussed further in Appendices C and D.
0.6
Contents
Below is a list of all the fields in the distributed dataset. Each number that precedes
the name of the field refers to a subsequent section within this documentation.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
FILE
POS
REF
BATCH
SOURCE
PIECE
FOLIO
PAGE
SFOLIO
SPAGE
FILM
COUNTRY
COUNTRYENU
COUNTRYSTD
CITY
PARISH
REGDISTRICT
HAMLET
ADDRESS
HOUSEENU
HOUSESTD
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
RELSTD
MARENU
MARSTD
SEXENU
AGEENU
AGETYPE
AGETYPEENU
AGETYPESTD
AGEDAYS
OCCUPATION
BIRCOUNTYENU
BIRCOUNTYSTD
BIRPARISH
SORT
INFIRM
NOTEF
1881 census database
15
0.6.1 Data included in CEBs and not in database
0.6.1.1
Schedule numbers
Schedule numbers were given in the CEBs in the far left-hand column. (See Figure 1.)
These numbers refer to the number of the schedule given by the enumerator to the
householder. The schedule number is useful as it often identifies the order in which
the enumerator delivered schedules. It also gives additional information on
households. Each household should have received a schedule from an enumerator,
thus properties housing more than one family should have more than one schedule.
See below, Section 20 for further details. The GSU omitted this information from the
database.
0.6.1.2
Welsh language returns
(see Appendix B.)
0.7
General information
A number of rules from transcription relate to all (or many) fields.
0.7.1 Missing information
When an entry in a column in a CEB was found to be empty it was transcribed as
three dashes unless the column contained information on household, age, gender or
infirmity. Therefore when a field in the database contains three dashes it was blank
in the original CEB.
0.7.2 Deleted information
When information in the CEB was crossed out (rather than ticked or highlighted in
some way) it was transcribed within double round brackets. When whole records
were crossed out, because they had been enumerated twice, sometimes they have
been transcribed twice and sometimes they have only been transcribed once. If a
single enumerator enumerated a person or some persons more than once, and
noticed this error, one of the two records was usually crossed out, ensuring that the
population and other statistics for a district would be correct. In the database,
however, the deleted record(s) in this example, would usually be transcribed and a
note would be made, for each record, to the effect that it should not be used in any
calculations. (See the sections below on notes (p.42ff.))
0.7.3 Unclear information
If information was illegible or indecipherable in the CEBs the transcribers were
instructed to follow the information with a question mark. Evaluators and later
checkers may have removed this question mark and replaced it with a three dots,
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though in some cases a transcription-generated question mark remains in the
database.
0.7.4 Material in another hand
The CEBs contain information which was not written by the enumerator. In such
cases the author of such notes and comments was either the registrar or one of the
abstractors preparing the tables for publication. As these comments usually enhance
the information contained in the CEBs they have been included in the database.
However, they have been added within parentheses which causes some confusion
with the material already written by the enumerator within parentheses.
0.8
Restructuring the county dataset for use
In order to sort the data into the same order as the original CEBs it will be necessary
to perform a simple task. First the fields PIECE, FOLIO and PAGE should be
converted into numeric datatype. They should be carefully checked beforehand as
the distributor has not verified the data from receipt and some of these fields may
not be able to be directly converted into a numeric datatype, e.g., contents might be
122 2 or 24A. Once these three fields have been converted, the four fields PIECE,
FOLIO, PAGE and POS (an HDS-added identifier) should be sorted in that order.
Once this is complete a new (preferably numerical) unique identifier should be
added to keep the new sequence of records. This will arrange records within each
registration district in the same order as the original CEBs. Obviously, because of the
family relationships the sequence of records in this database is significant. It will also
be worth considering the detailed descriptions in Section 22.2 about records relating
to uninhabited houses, etc., and in Appendices C and D where ‘header’ records are
described.
1
FILE
This variable represents the ‘GSU-county’, i.e., the county the GSU allocated the
particular record to. It does not always represent the registration county or the
ancient county. It is predominantly used for internal purposes.
2
POS
This variable represents the sequential number recorded by the HDS while reading
data from the GSU-supplied tapes. This number, when used in conjunction with the
fields PIECE, FOLIO and PAGE allows the data to be sorted into the original order
found in the CEBs. This field also provides the fourth part of a new unique identifier
for each county datafile.
17
1881 census database
3
REF
This field contains the GSU identifier for each record within the database. This is
generally unique for each county datafile but for some registration counties this is
not the case. Different solutions need to be applied to different problems. For
example, in Cornwall, over 900 REFs are used more than once. In this case the
REF+BATCH could probably be made to operate as a unique identifier if it were
needed. In Montgomeryshire there are only a handful of records which have the
same REF. In this case it seems to be that the people were transferred from one
registration district to another, though here the people have different names there is
an unresolvable problem here. Usually the reason for this occurrence is found within
the notes fields. See the discussion in Section 39 below.
It should also be noted that this field is a device which allows one to ascertain those
records which have been repeated by the GSU for the purposes of genealogical
research. The procedure followed by the GSU is not identical for each county, but
there are similarities. For example, for the three pairs of records below, it is clear that
those with a reference number ending in 700 or 700x are the duplicates. (This is an
example from Gloucestershire.)
REF
SNAME
2466-10-14-682
2466-10-14-700
2466-33-11-516
2466-33-11-700
2466-87-3-7007
2466-87-3-7007
COMER OR CORNER
CORNER OR COMER
THOMEY OR STROMEY
STROMEY OR THOMEY
ANNS OR ARMS
ANNS OR ARMS
The examples below are from the Isle of Man, where the identifying 700 is present in
the added records, but in a different position within this field than in the example
above. (Notice also the different format of the GSU identifier for this county.)
REF
SNAME
IOM0000000168
IOM0007000168
IOM0000003920
IOM0007003920
BOGDE OR BODDE
BODDE OR BOGDE
THULLEY OR KULLEY
KULLEY OR THULLEY
Note that in some cases the field REF represents the piece, folio, page and GSU
sequential reference number for the record. In these cases there should be no
duplicates.
4
BATCH
This field represents the ‘batch’ number created by the GSU for tracking purposes.
Generally speaking each batch refers to a CEB. Sometimes, however, it refers to part
of a CEB. It remains in the datafile for reference purposes.
18
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SOURCE
This field represents Public Record Office piece number, proceeded by the PRO class
and section marks.
6
PIECE
This field represents the Public Record Office piece number for a group of
enumeration books.
7
FOLIO
This field represents the folio number of a particular enumeration book. (See above,
Section 0.3.) This field is not always likely to be numerical; it is worth considering
altering the contents of this field to x.1 etc., where the original contents of the field is
xA etc.
8
PAGE
This field represents the page number of a particular enumeration book within a
particular enumeration district. If an enumeration district was too large to fit into a
single book, more than one would be used. Thus page numbers span all the CEBs
used for a particular registration sub-district. (See Sections 0.4 and 6 above for
further details.)
9
SFOLIO
10
SPAGE
The variables SFOLIO and SPAGE invariably contain the same information as in the
FOLIO and PAGE fields, however, in all cases the numerical information is followed
by a dollar sign. When the field FOLIO contains a non-numeric field, like 52A, the
SFOLIO field will contain the same, i.e., without the dollar sign. This field is a useful
way of checking whether the FOLIO and PAGE fields are numeric.
11
FILM
The field gives the GSU reference number for the microfilm number from which this
record can be found. For most practical purposes the most efficient way of finding
the original CEB from which a record is taken is to use the fields, PIECE, FOLIO and
PAGE. However, this field aids recourse to the original if you have access to one of
the GSU collection of microfilms of the 1881 census.
1881 census database
12
19
COUNTRY
This is a GSU internal code. The digits 045 which should occur in every single record
refers to the country to which the record relates. 045 is the GSU code for Great
Britain. (This field may not be distributed.)
13
COUNTYENU
This field contains information about the county of enumeration of the record. The
information in this field has been coded—Appendix E contains these codes. It should
be noted that it is not always clear whether this field refers to the ancient county or
the registration county. In some cases it refers to one, in others to the other. See
Appendix A for a discussion. This field should correspond to the field FILE, though
not always contain identical information.
14
COUNTYSTD
This field should only ever contain the county of enumeration. It is the field from
which the database creators created the previous field. It should also be
standardised.
As the name of the county was not listed at the top of each page of the enumerators’
books it is either taken from the description page or deduced from the registration
district. This leads to confusion over whether the county in this field is the ancient or
registration county. (See Appendix A for definitions of these units.) This is further
complicated by the practice employed by the database designers regarding parishes
that crossed county borders (see p.51ff). The result of this is that in cases where a
parish is in one registration county but in another ancient county, this field may
contain either the ancient or the registration county.
15
CITY
This field is supposed to contain information on the ‘city’ of enumeration. Very few
records contain this information, and, indeed, many of the records which do contain
this information seem to contain ‘odd’ characters. These will eventually be removed
from the distributed data, but at present they remain. This information is taken from
the top of the CEB and should not have been standardised by the GSU but may have
been in some cases.
16
PARISH
This field contains the name of the civil parish in which the record it relates to was
enumerated. The information on parish of enumeration was either taken from the
head of the CEB page or from the description page (see 0.3.2.1). (Unlike the parish of
birth (Section 28) this field should never contain the name of an ancient or
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ecclesiastical parish but sometimes (very infrequently) it does. This field is likely to
have been standardised during transcription.
17
REGDISTRICT
This field contains the name of the registration district (see Appendix A) in which
the record it relates to was enumerated. The information on registration district was
either taken from the head of the CEB page or from the description page (see Section
0.4.2.1), it should not have been standardised by the GSU but may have been in some
cases. There are occasions where this information is not present. Often it can be
inferred from other information.
18
HAMLET
This field is supposed to contain information on the ‘hamlet’ (or town) of
enumeration which occurs on the top of each page of CEB. Very few records contain
this information, and, indeed, many of the records which do contain this information
seem to contain ‘odd’ characters. These will eventually be removed from the
distributed data, but at present they remain. This information is taken from the top
of the CEB and should not have been standardised by the GSU but may have been in
some cases.
19
ADDRESS
19.1 Address basics
The address of each individual is given exactly as it appeared in the original. Where
the enumerator left ditto marks (or the abbreviation ‘Do.’) for addresses the
transcribers and evaluators made their own decisions as to which individuals these
dittos referred. In the CEBs it was not uncommon for the head of household only to
be given an address while the remaining members of the household would have a
blank entry in the address column. Subsequently, transcribers have inferred the
address of other household members, by assuming that all those with no entry in the
address column were resident at the same address until a different address occurred
in the address column. In many cases this rule meant that dozens of families look as
though they are living at the same address, though the fields HOUSEENU and
HOUSESTD allow one to uncover further information.
House numbers should also have been transcribed, and though the transcribers were
told not to confuse house numbers with schedule numbers it not impossible that
some schedule numbers were transcribed in error.
21
1881 census database
Addresses which were given in more than one record in the original were brought
together, e.g.
Water Mill
(Victory Inn)
//
SMITH
SMITH
JOHN
MARY
HEAD
WIFE
would appear in the database as:
ADDRESS
HOUSEENU
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
Water Mill (Victory Inn)
Water Mill (Victory Inn)
//
SMITH
SMITH
JOHN
MARY
HEAD
WIFE
It is worthwhile to note that names of houses and other additional information are
sometimes found at the beginning of the record enclosed in quotation marks. For
example, “Lawn Villa” The Crescent. Note also the ‘instructions to the
enumerators’ (see Section 0.4.2.2) where the enumerator was told to use the
following abbreviations:
Rd.
St.
Pl.
Sq.
Ter.
Road
Street
Place
Square
Terrace
Many other abbreviations can be found in this field.
19.2 Deletions
Any material in the CEBs in this column which did not refer to address but was
crossed out was not transcribed. This generally refers to surnames.
19.3 Other information
If the only entry in a CEB record was an address, transcribers were instructed to
leave it in the address field and leave the remaining fields blank. If other descriptive
material was included in this field it should have been added as a note. (This usually
only applies to uninhabited buildings.)
If the enumerator enumerated ‘empty buildings’ like school houses, chapels,
churches or factories, transcribers were instructed to write the name of the building
in the address field and leave the rest of the columns blank, wherever they were
recorded within the CEB. However, some entries which contain information like this
have an age of 0 imputed to field AGEDAYS (see Section 32) which should be
ignored.
22
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HOUSEENU
Information relating to household is one of the more problematic items in the CEBs.
Schedules were supposed to be delivered to each ‘household’—the instructions state
that schedules should be delivered to each occupier or lodger.2 The term occupier
was ‘understood to apply to the resident owner, or to a person who pays rent, whether (as a
tenant) for the whole of a house, or as a lodger) for any distinct floor or apartment…’ The
instructions also stated that a single schedule should be left for:
(a) a family consisting of a man, his wife, and children; or of parents, children,
servants, and visitors;
(b) a family consisting of parents and children, with boarders at the same table,
and the servants of the family, if any;
(c) a lodger alone, or two or more lodgers boarding together;
(d) an out-door servant, living, with or without a family, in a detached outoffice or tenement contiguous to a mansion, as in a lodge, gardener’s
cottage, or coach-house and stable with dwelling rooms attached. But a
servant sleeping in any out-building, and boarding in his master’s house,
should be included in his master’s Schedule with the other servants of the
family.3
Following the collection of the information from the householders, the enumerators
were instructed to transcribe each family as it appeared on the original schedule,
following the last person in the household with a ‘strong double line…to separate
the inmates from those of the house next following’ and where there was more than
one occupier in the same house the enumerators were instructed to draw a single
line to distinguish between different families. The instructions also noted that
lodgers, with or without families, were to be considered as a ‘family’.
This instruction is possibly one of the most broken and ignored instructions relating
to the compilation of the CEBs; consequently considerable care must be taken when
assessing families and households within the database.
These problems stem both from the original enumeration and from the method of
transcription. In the first case it is possible that the enumerator forgot (or
misunderstood) where to place the double and single strokes. Also, households
which end at the bottom of a page frequently do not have the double strokes. The
enumerator may also have put double strokes where a single one was relevant. The
transcription process may have been problematic, first because the transcribers were
instructed to move the double stroke marks to denote the beginning of a new
2
3
PRO RG 27/5 Item 27. Instructions to the various officers as to their duties in taking the census,
p.26.
As above; all italics are as in original.
23
1881 census database
household and to place single stroke marks to denote a separate family or individual
in a house. This instruction was clearly not carried out uniformly. Secondly,
transcribers and evaluators were also told that under no circumstances should they
add any such strokes, so where enumerators left these strokes out they have not
been added. A further potential area for error, is that when households/families
have gone over pages, occasionally the transcribers have forgotten to return to the
record on the previous page to add the tick marks and this has not been picked up
by the evaluators. Below is a correct example from Bedfordshire.
ADDRESS
2
2
2
2
Howard
Howard
Howard
Howard
HOUSEENU HOUSTD
St //
St /
St
St
Self
REDMAN, Sarah
REDMAN, Sarah
REDMAN, Sarah
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
RELSTD
REDMAN
CLARKE
CLARKE
CLARKE
Sarah
Arthur S.
Bertha H.
Charles L.
Head
Head
Lodger
Lodg
Daur Of LodgerLdgD
Son Of Lodger LdgS
The cumulative effect of the problems described above should be considered in any
analysis of household size or structure. (See also Section 18.5.)
This field should contain either a // denoting the beginning of a new household or a
/ denoting the first person in a subsidiary family in a household. Note however, that
this field sometimes contains the entries \\ and \.
An interesting example from Cornwall:
ADDR
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
Chapel
Chapel
Chapel
Chapel
Chapel
Chapel
Chapel
Terr
Terr
Terr
Terr
Terr
Terr
Terr
HOUSENU HOUSTD
SNAME
PNAME
RELENU
//
--//
//
-------
SPRAGE
SPRAGE
ALLEN
ALLEN
ALLEN
ALLEN
ALLEN
Samuel
Isabell
William Hy.
Ellen Jane
Thomas Hy.
Ellen Jane
Clara E.
Head
Wife
Head
Wife
Son
Daur
Daur
Self
SPRAGE, Samuel
Self
ALLEN, William
ALLEN, William
ALLEN, William
ALLEN, William
Hy.
Hy.
Hy.
Hy.
Here a second double stroke has been added to the record of Ellen Jane Allen. This is
probably a transcription error. Below John Burgoyne has been given a double stroke
rather than a single stroke presumably in error by the enumerator. He is clearly a
separate ‘family’ within the same house as another ‘family’.
ADDR
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
Latchley
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
(Cottage)
28
28
28
29
29
29
29
29
HOUSEENU HOUSTD
SNAME
PNAME
RELENU
//
--//
//
---------
PERCY
PERCY
BURGOYNE
WICKETT
WICKETT
WICKETT
WICKETT
WICKETT
Thomas
Johanna
John
Daniel
Sarah
Sarah
Ellen
Richard
Head
Wife
Lodger
Head
Wife
Daur
Daur
Son
Self
PERCY, Thomas
PERCY, Thomas
Self
WICKETT, Daniel
WICKETT, Daniel
WICKETT, Daniel
WICKETT, Daniel
24
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HOUSESTD
This field contains a ‘standardised head of household’. This field was added by the
GSU for genealogical purposes as they wished for it to be possible to relate an
individual back to the head of their household. This should not be confused with the
‘head of family’. The GSU definition for head of household is those who were
defined in the CEB as head of household and those people who were redefined as
heads by the GSU. See sections 24 and 25 for more information.
Heads of household will have the word Self in this field, all other individuals in the
same household will have the surname and first name of the head of household here.
As this field was created automatically (and it seems solely by the contents of the
RELENU field) it is likely that some errors and inconsistencies have slipped in (see
the example below). The first example, illustrates the basic principle.
HOUSENU
HOUSTD
//
---------
Self
PURVIS,
PURVIS,
PURVIS,
PURVIS,
William
William
William
William
SNAME
PNAME
RELENU
PURVIS
PURVIS
PURVIS
PURVIS
PURVIS
William
Fanny
James
Ellen
William
Head
Wife
Son
Daur
Son
Two contradictory examples are shown below:
ADDRESS
HOUSEENU HOUSTD
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
Bedw
//
JARMAN
JARMAN
JARMAN
JARMAN
JARMAN
JONES
JONES
JONES
JONES
Maurice
Evan
Edward
Elen
Martha
Richd.
Anny
Richd.
Mary Elen
Widr (Head)
Son
Son
Daur
Daur
Lodger (Head)
Wife
Son
Daur
ADDRESS
HOUSEENU HOUSTD
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
JONES
JONES
JONES
JONES
MARPOLE
MARPOLE
Evan
Catherine
Humphey
Mary
Mary
John
Head
Daug
Son
Daug
Housekeeper
Son
Walkmile
Walkmile
Walkmile
Walkmile
Walkmile
Walkmile
Cottage //
Cottage
Cottage
Cottage
Cottage /
Cottage
Self
JARMAN, Maurice
JARMAN, Maurice
JARMAN, Maurice
JARMAN, Maurice
Self
JONES, Richd.
JONES, Richd.
JONES, Richd.
Self
JONES,
JONES,
JONES,
JONES,
JONES,
Evan
Evan
Evan
Evan
Evan
The difference being that the evaluators have altered the RELENU in the first
example from Lodger to Lodger (Head). See Section 24.6.3.
Consider also the example on page 26 showing the residents of Bell Inn. Here a new
record has been added with Self in the HOUSESTD column to separate those
boarding at the Inn from the family which ran it. This record is a dummy or header
record.
1881 census database
22
25
SURNAME
22.1 Surname basics
The surname field generally contains the surname of each individual. There are a
number of exceptions. These will be described below. During the transcription
process some standardisation was carried out to prevent anomalies. These include:
22.1.1 Interpretation
If two interpretations of the same name could be made transcribers were instructed
to include them both joined by the word OR. For example, JONES OR JAMES. Note
again that an additional record will have been added to the database for each
individual where this occurs with the order of the surnames reversed. See Section 3
above.
22.1.2 Same family/different name
If a surname was spelt in different ways within a family, and transcribers thought
that it seemed to be the same name they were instructed to enter the name as it
appeared on the original and transcribe the surname of the head of household within
brackets subsequently. For example, MATHEWS (MATTHEWS) would occur if the head
of a family had the surname Matthews but the person under scrutiny had the
surname Mathews.
22.1.3 Missing names
If an enumerator failed to include a surname for some members of a household, but
the transcribers thought it obvious that the enumerator intended them to be of the
same family (and thus the same surname) the surname will have been added.
22.1.4 Initials
When individuals were transcribed solely by their initials (most prevalent within
institutions), transcribers were instructed to only to transcribe the final initial as the
surname, all other initials were to be inserted into the FNAME field.
22.1.5 Punctuation
Surnames were meant to be spelt as enumerated. Transcribers were instructed to
spell names such as v. Hindenburg, O’Brian, MacPhearson, ap Jones exactly as they
were enumerated. (Note that the surnames within the database should have been
capitalised, so superscript c’s in McGrath, etc. would be transcribed as capitals.)
However, in many cases clearly this rule was not carried out. Apostrophes have not
always been clearly typed, different symbols have been inserted, including double
open quotation marks and spaces have often but not always been inserted after the
MC or MAC in a surname. (Accents have also been lost.)
26
Documentation v0.3
22.2 Other information found in surname column
22.2.1 Uninhabited houses and houses being built
Before doing any analysis on the individuals within any particular area, it is worth
sorting the SURNAME field for information on houses in the process of being built
or which were uninhabited. If the CEB recorded a house as being built or
uninhabited, i.e. the column relating to uninhabited or being built houses contained
an entry like ‘2U’, transcribers were instructed to fill in the surname field with the
text UNINHABITED (2 HOUSES). All remaining fields in this record should be blank
(perhaps with the exception of the note fields—see Section 39 and the following
pages). Similarly if this column in the CEB contained the text ‘1B’, the text BEING
BUILT will be found in the database.
22.2.2 Institution and vessel information
Occasionally this field contains the name of an institution or a vessel. These occur,
without uniformity in many counties and are used to create a dummy head of
household to separate a family residing in an institution. For example:
ADDRESS
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
I-"Bell
HOUSEENU
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
Inn"
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
Waits //
Waits
Waits
Waits
Waits
Waits
Waits
Waits
Waits
HOUSESTD
SNAME
FNAME
RELENU
Self
MAPPERLY, Samuel
MAPPERLY, Samuel
Self
"BELL INN"
"BELL INN"
"BELL INN"
"BELL INN"
"BELL INN"
MAPPERLY
MAPPERLY
MAPPERLY
"BELL INN"
LEES
HAWES
HAWES
HAWES
WALLACE
Samuel
Ann
Emma
Head
Wife
Daur
Head
Boarder
Boarder
Boarder
Boarder
Boarder
William
William
Emma
Arthur
Harry
Note that in this sense the term institution may mean schools, inns, hospitals,
workhouses, and hotels, etc. (See Appendix D.)
23
FNAME
23.1 First name basics
This column should only contain information relating to the first name of any
individual recorded in the census. This may be the whole first name, an abbreviation
or an initial. There are a number of exceptions to this. These are detailed below.
23.2 First names
23.2.1 Initials and abbreviations
All superscripts and initials should have full points added, e.g. ROBT. However
there are exceptions.
1881 census database
27
23.2.2 Unnamed children
Unnamed children, i.e. those with a given name of ‘Baby’ or ‘Infant’ should occur
within the database as given. If neither a name, or one of these designations were
given and it was clear from consideration of the age of the child the word INFANT
will have been added. If the surname was not given it should have been added (see
Section 22.1.3).
23.2.3 Second names/maiden names etc.
All names apart from the surname were transcribed in this field. If a doublebarrelled name was not clearly hyphenated, it is probable that it will appear in this
field.
23.3 Additions to first names
23.3.1 Twins
Where individuals were enumerated as twins, i.e. the word ‘twin’ occurred within
the CEB, transcribers were instructed to transcribe the entry as the first name of the
individual followed by the word twin in brackets, e.g. Henry (twin). The two fields
should be identical.
23.3.2 Titles
Where an individual was enumerated with a title, e.g. ‘Sir’, ‘Lady’, ‘Mr.’, ‘Rev.’ etc.,
the transcribers were instructed to transcribe the entry as the first name of the
individual followed by the title, e.g. John (Rev.), --- (Mrs.).
23.3.3 Appellations
Where an individual was enumerated with an appellation to their name, e.g.
‘Thomas Jones, Jnr.’, transcribers were instructed to transcribe the entry as the first
name of the individual followed by the appellation, e.g. Thomas (Jnr.).
23.3.4 Other material
Though there were not specific instructions for other material, it is clear that the
enumerator included some non-standard information which the transcribers were
unable to place correctly. One ‘family’ in Huntingdonshire, who ‘slept in a cave’
were given the surname Smith (possibly made-up) and the qualifier (Gypsie) was
added to the FNAME field.
23.4 Initials
When transcribers were unable to determine whether an individuals’ initial was I or
J they were instructed to use the letter J, on the grounds that many more names
begin with a J.
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RELENU
The field RELENU is an abbreviated form of the term relationship as enumerated. It
contains information on the relationship of the individual recorded to the head of
their household.
24.1 Heads of household
For the purposes of the GSU’s data entry program every household had to have a head
of household. (See Sections 22.2.2, 21 and 20.) If the original CEB contained a
household (usually defined as being between a pair of double slashes) whose head
was not defined as such that word should be added after the relationship as
enumerated. e.g. a family which contained a woman and two children, where the
woman was enumerated as being a ‘wife’ would become the head, i.e. WIFE (HEAD).
A problem concerning consistency is compounded by the diligence of some
enumerators. Consider a family containing a husband (temporarily absent) who lives
with his wife and 20-year old son. One enumerator may have considered the son the
head of household and enumerated him as such; another might consider the mother
the head and enumerate her as such.
Exactly how the transcribers would approach this problem is unclear. If it was
necessary to establish a head they were told to use five pieces of information within
the CEBs to assist them in their choices:
• schedule number;
• change of address;
• inhabited strokes;
• household strokes;
• family relationships
Note, however, it is impossible to check this process internally because schedule
numbers as they appeared in the CEB were not included in the machine-readable
version. See also Section 20 above.
24.2 Unusual relationships
Transcribers were instructed not to resolve unusual relationships, rather to give
them as enumerated with clarifications written in single brackets. They were
categorically instructed to leave the original as enumerated if there was any
problem. There is some evidence to suggest that this was not wholly carried out.
24.3 Pre-head members
If any member of a household was enumerated before the head of household
transcribers were instructed to leave it as the enumerator recorded it but adding a
note saying that this had occurred.
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1881 census database
24.4 Split batches
As transcribers dealt with batches of CEBs for transcription there were some cases
where transcribers may have erroneously altered a relationship, as they could not
inspect the whole family. They were specifically instructed not to alter such potential
relationships.
24.5 Tick marks
If a family consisted of co-resident family groups and the CEBs gave correct
relationships to the head of household (not head of family) the original was not to be
altered, for example:
//
/
WILSON
WILSON
WILSON
JONES
JONES
JONES
GEORGE
MARY
JOHN
ROBERT
ALICE
JAMES
HEAD
WIFE
SON
SON IN LAW
DAUGHTER
GRANDSON
However, it is unclear what would have happened if this family was enumerated as:
//
/
WILSON
WILSON
WILSON
JONES
JONES
JONES
GEORGE
MARY
JOHN
ROBERT
ALICE
JAMES
HEAD
WIFE
SON
SON IN LAW
WIFE
SON
What would happen? One of two possibilities could be expected. The first would
have been to alter the relationships to those as stated in the first example; the second
would be to make Robert Jones’s relationship HEAD (SON IN LAW) and leave the
other relationships as they are. Examples of both possibilities can be found in the
county datafiles.
24.6 Lodgers/boarders
24.6.1 Lodgers (1)
Where distinct households contained only lodgers the first one listed, regardless of
age or sex would have the relationship head added as the relationship to the head of
household in brackets.
24.6.2 Lodgers (2)
If a lodger or boarder was identified as such in the relationship column, and it was
clear to the transcriber that s/he resided within that household, the additional head
should not have been added, even if there was a single stroke in the CEB. (For an
exception, see Section 24.6.3.) It is unclear on what grounds this rule was applied,
though surname and occupation are likely to give clues.
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24.6.3 Lodgers (3)
When lodgers or boarders were living with their own families and were given
relationships to suggest this by the enumerator, the transcribers were instructed to
ensure that one of the group should be identified as the head, for example:
//
/
WILLIAMS
WILLIAMS
WILLIAMS
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
ROBERT
ELIZ.
MARY
HENRY
FANNY
DAVID
HEAD
WIFE
DAUR
LODGER (HEAD)
WIFE
SON
24.6.4 Lodgers (4)
When lodgers or boarders were living with their own families and were not given
relationships to suggest this by the enumerator, the transcribers were instructed not
to make one of them the head of household. Note that transcribers were told to
ignore the occupations or names of people only to use the information given in the
relationship to head of household column.
//
/
WILLIAMS
WILLIAMS
WILLIAMS
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
ROBERT
ELIZ.
MARY
HENRY
FANNY
DAVID
HEAD
WIFE
DAUR
LODGER
LODGER
LODGER
SHOPKEEPER
SHOPKEEPER’S WIFE
SCHOLAR
LABOURER
LABOURER’S WIFE
SCHOLAR
24.7 Other relationships
When relationships within families were given incorrectly to the head of household,
transcribers were instructed to add the correct relationship within brackets:
//
JONES
JONES
JONES
JONES
MARY
JOHN
ALICE
GEORGE
DAUR (HEAD)
SON (BROTHER)
DAUR (SISTER)
SON (BROTHER)
18
17
13
11
It is perhaps interesting to note that the GSU generally choose the eldest as head,
rather than the eldest male, which would possibly have been the chosen practice of
most enumerators. Also, for example:
//
GREEN
GREEN
JAMES
JAMES
GREEN
EDWARD
PHOEBE
ROBERT
SUSAN
RICHARD
HEAD
WIFE
SON IN LAW
WIFE (DAUR)
SON
55
51
25
25
20
24.8 Abbreviations and standardisation
The transcribers were instructed to transcribe the relationships as enumerated,
however the evaluators were instructed not to alter obvious abbreviations. For
example, if the CEB says ‘Daughter’ and it was transcribed as Daur, it will be found
in the machine-readable version as DAUR. A single exception to this was the head of
household. Whatever was found in the CEBs the machine-readable version will
contain HEAD. (It is on this basis that we believe that the contents of the
HOUSESTD field were allocated to Self or otherwise.)
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1881 census database
25
RELSTD
This field contains a standardised version of the contents of the field RELENU. This
standardisation was produced during the indexing process. Unfortunately, the
information as it stands is perhaps not sufficiently standardised for straightforward
analysis. The standardisation is based directly on the string found in the RELENU
column, so no value judgements have been made on the data. For example, people
described as ‘Daughter in Law’ would receive the code DauL whereas someone
described as ‘Son’s Wife’ would receive the code SonW.
The main codes for relationships should be clear:
Head
Wife
Son
Daur
Sis
Bro
Moth
Head
Wife
Son
Daughter
Sister
Brother
Mother
Fath
Niec
Neph
Cous
1Cou
Aunt
Uncl
Father
Niece
Nephew
Cousin
1st Cousin
Aunt
Uncle
The addition of a capital letter to many of the above codes (or an abbreviated version
of the above) alters the meaning. Note that ‘basic’ relationships are all standardised
to four characters long—but see page 33 below. The most important additional
letters are:
G...
GG..
S...
H...
A...
F...
...L
Grand
Great Grand ...
Step ...
Half ...
Adopted ...
Foster ...
...in Law
...B
...D
...S
...W
...M
...F
...’s
...’s
...’s
...’s
...’s
...’s
Brother
Daughter
Son
Wife
Mother
Father
Some examples of this usage are shown below. Sometimes two of the above
additions can occur in the same code. Also, note that these codes are case sensitive.
For example, Uncl stands for uncle while UncL stands for Uncle in Law.
GDaur
GSon
SDaur
GGDa
HBro
ADau
FDau
MotL
SonL
DauL
GDaL
WifB
SisD
UncL
BorW
LdgS
WiSn
GSnL
Grand Daughter
Grand Son
Step Daughter
Great Grand Daughter
Half Brother
Adopted Daughter
Foster Daughter
Mother in Law
Son in Law
Daughter in Law (also for Son’s Wife)
Grand Daughter in Law
Wife’s Brother (aka BroL)
Sister’s Daughter
Uncle by (in) Law
Border’s Wife (similarly BroW = Brother’s Wife)
Lodger’s Son
Wife’s Son
Grandson in Law
Though some codes only occur in this ‘additional’ form:
GChd
Adop
Grand Child
Adopted
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Other frequently occurring (non-family) codes are:
Serv
Bord
Lodg
Vist
Inmt
Pris
Schl
Appr
Asst
Rela
Cook
Comp
Pupl
Ptnt
Servant
Boarder
(n.b.BorD = Border’s Daughter)
Lodger
Visitor
Inmate
Prisoner
Scholar
Apprentice
Assistant
Relation/Relative
Cook (also Cook Serv)
Companion
Pupil
Patient
Some others, though this list is by no means complete:
Adnt
Alab
Bail
Bakr
BarM
Bksm
Bltd
Btlr
Casl
Cftr
Chld
Clrk
Cptn
Crpl
Crte
Dmkr
Drum
DSer
Ernd
Frnd
Fpup
FSer
Galr
Gdnr
Grom
GSer
Gvns
Hskp
HsMd
IChg
Jrnm
Lad
LdyM
Ltnt
Attendant
Agricultural Lab.
Bailiff
Baker
Barmaid
Blacksmith
Billited
Butler
Casual
Confectioner
Child At Nurse
Clerk
Captain
Corporal
Curate
Dressmaker
Drummer
Domestic Servant
Errand Girl
Friend
Farm Pupil
Farm Servant
Gaoler
Gardener
Groom
Genl Serv
Governess
Housekeeper
House Maid
In Charge
Journeyman
Lad
Ladys Maid
Lieutenant
Maid
Mast
MedS
Mrnr
Mtrn
None
NotK
Nrsl
NurC
Nurs
Ocup
Offr
Orph
Othr
Ownr
Phys
Pris
PrMd
Prvt
Ptnr
Rela
Rect
Shop
SLMn
Spin
Srgt
Supr
Tant
Tchr
Tutr
Umar
Wrdr
WrkM
Maid
Master
Medical Super.
Mariner /Seaman
Matron
None
N.K.
Nursling
Nurse Child
Nurse
Occupier
Officer
Orphan
Other
Owner Of House
(House) Physician
Prisoner
Parlourmaid
Private
Partner
Relation
Rector
Shopman
Slaughterman
Spinster
Sergeant
Superintendent
Tenant
Teacher
Tutor
Unm
Warder
Workman
Most of those appearing in this last section occur so infrequently as to be
unnecessary to list, but are given as an indication of the different abbreviations used.
Other standardisations will be clear from examination of the RELENU field. It is not
clear why the GSU were inconsistent in their capitalisation.
Finally there are a large number of relationship codes which include the use of
brackets. For details of the use of brackets within relationships see Sections 24.7 and
33
1881 census database
24.6.3. The most common is the use of the word head in brackets after the usual
relationship. For example:
Rect(Head)
Serv(Head)
Sis(Head)
Son(Head)
SonL(Head)
Spin(Head)
Srgt(Head)
Umar(Head)
Vist(Head)
Widr(Head)
Widw(Head)
Wife(Head)
Aunt(Head)
Bord(Head)
Cous(Head)
Daur(Head)
Fath(Head)
Lodg(Head)
MedS(Head)
Moth(Head)
Mtrn(Head)
Ocup(Head)
Pris(Head)
Prvt(Head)
These are by no means all of the possible combinations in this field. The remainder
fall into two categories. First, those that are simply additions in another hand, for
example:
(Serv) (Servant)
(Sis)
(Sister)
(Son)
(Son)
(SSon) (Step Son)
(Wife) (Wife)
(Daur) (Daughter)
(Daur) (Daur)
(GDau) (Grand Daur)
(GSon) (Grandson)
(Lodg) (Lodger)
The second category involves those relationships which have been altered or
clarified either at the time of the census or by the transcribers and evaluators. For
example:
Adop(Daur)
Bord(Wife)
Cook(Sis)
Daur(DauL)
Daur(GDau)
Daur(Sis)
Daur(SisD)
Daur(Son)
Daur(Wife)
GDau(Daur)
GDau(GSon)
GSon(GDau)
GSon(Son)
Head(Son)
Head(Wife)
Lodg(Bord)
Niec(Cous)
Niec(Neph)
Rela(Vist)
Son (Bro)
Son (Daur)
Son (GSon)
Son (SSon)
Son(SisS)
Wife(DauL)
Wife(Daur)
Adopted (Daur)
Boarder (Wife)
Cook (Sister)
Daur (in Law)
Daughter (Grand Daughter)
Daur (Sister)
Daur (Sister's Daur)
Daur (Son)
Daur (Wife)
Grand Daur (Daur)
Grand Daur (G Son)
Grand Son (Grand Daur)
Grandson (Son)
Head (Son)
Head (Wife)
Lodger (Boarder)
Niece (Cousin)
Niece (Nephew)
Relative (Visitor)
Son (Bro)
Son (Daur)
Son (Grandson)
(Step) Son
Son (Sister's Son)
Wife (D In Law)
Wife (Daur)
Bro((Widw)
GFat((Son)
Head((W))
Vist((Sis)
Wife((Son)
Brother ((Widr))
Grandfather ((Son))
Head ((W))
((Sister)) Visitor
Wife ((Son))
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Unfortunately some alterations have been made which may alter the meaning of the
original. For example the following two relationships have been allocated the same
code: ‘Wife (Son)’ and ‘Wife(Sons)’—both have the code Wife(Son). The former
should mean that the enumerator wrote the word wife in the relationship to head of
household column, but that the transcriber felt that this should actually be
considered a son. The latter means that the real relationship is probably Stepdaughter, i.e., son’s wife.
Standardisation in this field has been carried out consistently, but not always
‘correctly’. In the example below, from Cornwall, Elizabeth Duggan and Victoria
Baker are clearly not wives to the head of household.
HOUSES HOUSTD
SNAME
PNAME
RELENU
RELSTD
MARENU
--//
---------------------
Self
Self
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
SMITH,
DE LAIRY LAIRY
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
SMITH
DUGGAN
BAKER
L. (Major)
David
Jemima
Eagar G.
Ernest
Agness E.
William A.
Dora M.
Katherine M.
Francis J.
Elizabeth
Victoria
Head
--- (Head)
Wife
Son
Son
Daur
Son
Daur
Daur
Son
Wife
Wife
Head
--- (Head)
Wife
Son
Son
Daur
Son
Daur
Daur
Son
Wife
Wife
Unm
Mar
Mar
Mar
Mar
26
MARENU
David
David
David
David
David
David
David
David
David
David
This field contains the marital condition of each individual.
26.1 Abbreviations and standardisation
The transcribers were instructed to transcribe marital condition as enumerated,
however the evaluators were instructed not to alter obvious abbreviations. For
example, if the CEB says ‘Married’ and it was transcribed as Mar, it will be found in
the machine-readable version as Mar. This field usually contains a variant on the
words ‘Married’ (e.g., M, Ma, Mar, Mared, Maried, Marr, Marrd, Md, Mr, etc.),
‘Unmarried’ (e.g., U, Um, Umm, Un, Un Married, Un. , Unm, Unma, Unmar, Unmaried,
Unmarr, etc.), ‘Widow’ or ‘Widower’ (e.g. W, W, Wd, Wdr, Wdw, Wid, Widdow, Widdowr,
wider, Widor, Widow, Widow'r, Widower, Widowr, Widr, Widwar, Widwr, etc.) or
‘Single’ (e.g., S., Sing, Singel, etc.), though occasionally other information slips into
this field, for example, Spinster and Other.
26.2 Missing information
Evaluators were especially noted to include three dashes when this column was
empty on the CEB. However, in most cases only a single dash was entered in the
machine-readable version.
1881 census database
27
35
MARSTD
This field contains a standardised version of MARENU. As with the other
‘standardised’ fields this is slightly problematic. Sometimes different codes have
been allocated to similar, or potentially the same, conditions. For example, both the
codes S and U are used, denoting, respectively, Single and Unmarried. The code S
occurs very infrequently and generally speaking there are four codes in this field:
M
U
W
Unknown (Generally for children, thus single)
Married
Unmarried (includes spinster)
Widow(er)
When this field is null, it usually means that the record does not relate to a person,
rather it is a ‘header’ record.
28
SEXENU
This section should be read in conjunction with Section 29.
The manner in which the CEBs collected information on gender was not to specify
gender but to give the age of an individual within one of two columns designating
the two sexes. The machine-readable version does not replicate this form of data
holding. This field should only contain M or F, denoting Male and Female
respectively.
However, the transcribers (and evaluators) were asked to correct gender related data
if the age was written in the wrong gender box. They were specifically instructed to
alter this if the gender did not agree with the name and relationship (my italics). If
only one of these did not tally they were instructed to leave as enumerated. For
example, if Flora Thomas, daughter had the age of 6 in the male column of the CEB
she would have been transcribed as Flora Thomas, daughter, 6, female; but if Flora
Thomas, son had age 6 in the male column the transcribers should have assumed
that this represented a male, notwithstanding the almost certainly female first name.
The database usually contains either M (for male) and F (for female) but there are a
number of occurrences of blank fields or fields with one (or three) dash(es). (These
blanks or unknowns even appear when the first name of the person is unambiguous
about the gender of the person, though they usually appear when the age of the
person is also missing.)
When this field is null, it usually means that the record does not relate to a person,
rather it is a ‘header’ record.
29
AGEENU
This is a much muddled column. It can not be relied on directly. This sections should
be read in conjunction with Sections 30–32.
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The age of an individual was given in the CEB within a column relating to gender.
Transcribers were instructed to eliminate a crossed-out age if it had appeared in the
wrong column (e.g. to follow the census checkers’ judgement). If the age was given
but illegible transcribers were instructed to transcribe with an ellipsis. If the age was
not given they were instructed to transcribe with a dash (this is translated to --- in
the machine readable version).
This column contains all the numerical information contained within this column.
However it makes no distinction between numbers of years, months or days.
Therefore if someone has the age given as 1 in the database, it could mean that they
were aged 1 day, 1 month or 1 year. For any analysis of age, the field AGEDAYS
should be used. See, however, the following three sections.
30
AGETYPEENU
This field contains the text which appeared in the CEB which was used to define the
number which occurred in the specific age column. For example, ‘year’, ‘Day’, ‘mo.’
31
AGETYPESTD
This field contains a standardised version of the field AGETYPEENU. It should only
ever contain a blank, >, d, m, w, y, representing, more than a certain age, days,
months, weeks and years. The combination of this field and AGEENU is used to
calculate the AGEDAYS field.
32
AGEDAYS
This field contains information added to the original CEBs. However, it is a vital
field in the database as it is the only field which contains reliable information about
the age of an individual. This field should contain the age of individuals as given in
the CEBs multiplied by 365 (if given in years); by 30 (if originally given in months)
and 7 (if given in weeks). Thus if this column is divided by 365 it will yield the age in
years.
33
OCCUP
33.1 Basics
All material found in the occupation column in the CEB should also be found in the
machine-readable version (up to 80 characters). However there is no guarantee that
the information is in exactly the same order as in the original, though there is no
evidence to suggest that deliberate alterations were made by the transcribers.
Transcribers and evaluators were instructed to leave infirmities, if they were
enumerated there, in the occupation field; similarly occupations such as ‘Tailor’s
wife’, ‘Tailor’s son’, etc.
1881 census database
37
All information on degrees, etc. should have been enumerated as punctuated as in
the original. Though some odd qualifications do appear. For example, in Dorset one
person’s occupation is given as Surgeon M.R.C.S.E.L.R.C.S.E.L.A.S.Lon.L.
R.C.P.E.L.M.R.C.P.E. Which makes some sense—Member of the Royal College
of Surgeons of England, Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, etc.
33.2 Transposition
Material written in another hand should have been added within brackets at the end
of the entry. Given the potential for misinterpreting different hands this may cause
problems. The example given to the evaluators demonstrates a problem here:
Town Hall Keeper Munic
would have been transcribed as Hall Keeper (Town Munic) as the words Town
and Munic were written in another hand. However the ‘meaning’ of this entry is less
obvious. The original hand probably wrote ‘Hall Keeper’. A checker added ‘Town’ to
clarify this occupational title and a third hand probably added ‘Munic’ as this is an
abbreviation of the name of the classification group Municipal Officer.
33.3 Abbreviations
Evaluators were told that abbreviations made by the transcriber were acceptable.
The instructions given to the enumerators state: ‘In the column for “RANK,
PROFESSION, OR OCCUPATION,” such contractions may be used as “ag. lab.” for
agricultural labourer, but care must be taken that the contractions used are such as
will be readily understood.’ It is clear from the database that a number of
abbreviations found in the original CEBs have been expanded in the database. The
reverse seems not to happen.
33.4 Wives, etc.
In the original CEBs many wives and children were given occupational entries like
‘Baker’s Wife’, where the husband or head of household was enumerated as ‘Baker’.
However (and this seems to happen very infrequently) when the head was
enumerated as, say, ‘Baker and Confectioner’ and the following record had an
occupation ‘Baker’s Wife’ the database sometimes contains the entries Baker and
Confectioner and Baker and Confectioner’s Wife.
33.5 Additional numbers
A number of occupations have a number after them. For example, Agr Machine
Fitter (Mkr 10/1) or Machinist (22.2) or Machinist (22/2). These figures
were added by the clerks in the census office during the abstraction of the
occupations. They refer to the orders and sub-orders in the classification scheme
used in this census. Experience with occupations has shown not to place too great a
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reliance on these numbers, as the transcribers of the CEBs seem to have had greatest
difficulties in transcribing numbers.
33.6 Brackets
The general rule about brackets was described in Section 0.7.4 above. However, it is
worth noting that occasionally in the CEBs brackets were used by the enumerators.
This means that if the enumerator had written ‘Moulder (Iron)’ it would be in the
machine-readable version as Moulder (Iron). If the original read Moulder and
another hand had added Iron the database would also read Moulder (Iron)
potentially causing confusion.
34
BIRCOUNTYENU
This field contains the county of birth of an individual as recorded in the CEBs.
34.1 Incorrect information
Birthplaces were transcribed as enumerated, even when the information appeared to
be incorrect, and thus the database will perpetuate this inconsistencies.
The main aim in transcribing birthplaces was to get a correct county of birth.
Transcribers were instructed to write the place of birth exactly as it was written on
the census, regardless of the order in which the information occurred. If the CEB
contained information that looked like this:
DEVON
TEIGNMOUTH
TEIGNMOUTH
DEVON
It would have been transcribed it as such.
However, it is clear that where the county of birth was omitted by the enumerator it
has not been added in the construction of the dataset, even where the county of birth
can easily be inferred from the parish of birth.
When the transcriptions were passed to evaluators they were instructed to circle in
red the name of the county. When this transcription was passed to the data entry
operators they were instructed to type the contents of this column in the place of
birth, and the material circled in red in the county column.
Evaluators were also instructed to place a red circle around one of two dashes in this
column, denoting that the county was unknown.
Names of British counties should have been transcribed as enumerated, however if
the transcriber altered the spelling of the county (to make it correct) evaluators were
instructed not to alter it. Similarly if the transcribers abbreviated the county as
enumerated, evaluators didn’t alter it back, unless the meaning had been changed.
1881 census database
39
However, though the evaluators were told to circle the county in red and the data
entry operators were told to ensure that the red circled place name was keyed as the
county, this was not always correctly carried out. Sometimes (and it seems to be very
rarely) the parish or place of birth is in the BIRCOUNTYENU field and the county in
the BIRPARISH field.
34.2 Non-British birthplaces
If a birthplace related to a place outside of England, Wales or Scotland, a red circle
was placed around the country of birth by the evaluator denoting that this term
should be in this field. However this was not always correctly achieved by the dataentry operators. A similar process should have occurred if the place of birth was like
‘England’ or ‘North Wales’ or ‘Yorkshire, England’. In this last example the word
‘England’ should have been ignored, however, this was not consistently carried out.
34.2.1 British subjects
The terms ‘British Subject’ and ‘Naturalised British Subject’ were supposed to occur
in this column in the CEBs. These terms (and similar ones) should only be found in
the place or parish of birth. (The same rule should have been applied to those
described as ‘Foreign’.)
34.2.2 Born at sea
The term ‘Born at Sea’ was supposed to occur in this column in the CEBs. This term
(and similar ones) should only be found in the place or parish of birth, i.e., the
BIRPARISH field.
34.2.3 Islands in the seas
Islands which were ordinarily associated with an English or Scottish county were
treated as parishes or places, and entered in the database in that place. The Islands of
Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey, Man, Orkney, Shetland, Sark, Herm or Channel Islands
were treated as separate counties and should be found in the county of birth field.
34.3 Counties
34.3.1 London and Edinburgh
Evaluators were told not to circle London as it was not a county, but to circle
Edinburgh as it was. This implies that London, should not appear in the
BIRCOUNTYENU field but in BIRPARISH, though this is far from always the case.
34.3.2 City counties
If a place of birth was given as the name of a county which was also the name of a
town within that county, the information was taken to mean the county. For
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example, a birthplace given as ‘Warwick’ would appear in the database as being
born in the county of Warwick not the city.
However, if the CEB gave the words ‘City of Durham’ or similar this would be
included in the database as the place or parish of Durham, with no county. Note that
the actual entry in the database in this case would be DURHAM, CITY OF.
If a birthplace was given as ‘Middlesex City’ it would be in the database as:
BIRCOUNTYENU
BIRPARISH
MIDDLESEX
CITY OF LONDON
34.3.3 Chester and Lancaster
GSU transcribers and evaluators were made aware of potential problems
surrounding these two place names. Chester was, where appropriate, to be treated as
both a city and a county. Lancaster was only to be treated as a city, but abbreviations
such as ‘Lancs’ and ‘Lancas’ were to be treated with care. An unresolved problem
remains here, one would like to assume that in cases of ambiguity these particular
abbreviations would be treated as a county, but we have found no clear evidence
either to support or detract from this theory.
34.4 Unknowns
If the enumerator had written ‘Unknown’ or something similar in this column, the
evaluators were instructed to alter this to ‘NK’ and ensure it was treated as a county
of birth.
35
BIRCOUNTYSTD
This field contains the standardised county of birth. This field was added by the
GSU. All the codes for this field are given in Appendix D. This field always contains
a standardised version of the county as given in the CEB, even if it is wrong. For
example, the entry:
BIRCOUNTYSTD
BIRPARISH
PEM
Birmingham
has been found in the database. There is no place called Birmingham in
Pembrokeshire! Another sort of error occurs very occasionally in this field. The
standard code for Hertfordshire is HRT, while that for Hampshire is HAM.
However, because of the use of the abbreviations of Hants and Herts for Hampshire
and Hertfordshire respectively in the CEBs there has been some confusion. through
mistaken transcription. (Note also the potential confusion arising from the use of the
abbreviation ‘Hts’ in the CEBs.)
1881 census database
41
As noted above, it seems probable that in all cases where the county was not given in
the CEB, no attempt has been made to allocate a county to the record despite
information on parish being present allowing a reliable inference to be made.
36
BIRPARISH
This field contains the ‘parish’ in which an individual was born. Every birthplace
listed in the field BIRPARISH is meant to be a civil parish of birth. For definitions of
different types of parish, see Appendix A, below. However, this field does not
always contain the civil parish of an individual. There are five other possibilities:
•
Ancient parish;
•
Ecclesiastical parish;
•
Non-conformist parishes;
•
City (or town);
•
Address.
The implications of the confusion caused by individuals recording the ‘incorrect’
parish of birth can not be gauged. It is more likely to affect those people born within
cities and little research has been conducted on the birth places of those born in
cities. In Bristol, for example, the following parishes occur in this field.
St Marys Bristol
St. Judes Bristol
St Mathias Bristol
St Matthews Bristol
17 Milk St St Pauls Bri
14 Orchard Square Brist
With the exception of St Marys Bristol (which incidentally could refer to either
the parishes of St Mary-le-Port or St Mary Redcliff) none of the parishes above are
civil parish names. St. Jude was an ecclesiastical parish, whereas St. Matthias and St.
Matthew are not parishes at all, but, respectively, names of a diocesan training
college and a non-conformist church.
The final two examples, show that some individuals gave more information than
was necessary. In the first instance, it is clear that that the parish of birth was St.
Paul’s (however, there were two parishes called St. Paul in the Bristol region. (One
within the walls, one without.)) The final example, is more problematic. The address
of birth is obviously refers to an address in Bristol, but no parish can be directly
inferred from this.
37
SORT
This field represents a sort key for the GSU. It is usually, E (for England), I (for Isle of
Man), W (for Wales, S (for Scotland) and Z (for abroad). The last of these categories
includes Ireland.
42
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INFIRM
This field contains information about infirmities as recorded in the column headed
‘If (1) Deaf and Dumb (2) Blind (3) Imbecile or Idiot (4) Lunatic’. Though the
enumerator was only supposed to enter information on whether people were either
blind, deaf and dumb, or could be described as an imbecile or idiot or as a lunatic,
other information relating to infirmities crept into this column. Some examples are
given below. Two points are worth mentioning here. The column on occupation
often has material relating to infirmity, at least in the form of ‘Crippled Carpenter’,
and enumerators were also supposed to discover whether people had had their
infirmity since birth. This latter rule means that there are frequently entries like
Blind 13 Years.
“Neither"
(Lame)
(Paralyzed)
Blind & Lunatic
Blind from Smallpox
Blind In Right Eye
Blind Lunatic
Crippe
Infirm
Lame & B
Nearly Blind
Partly Blind
39
NOTEF
This field contains an asterisk which ‘flags’ that there is a note relating to the record
in the CEB. The note field will be found in a further table.
However, because the contents of this field will eventually be linked to this table the
following subsidiary fields will be discussed here.
40
The ‘note files’
The note files shall briefly be described here as they provide useful information
about individual records not available elsewhere.
Supplied with the data ordered will be a separate table which contains the relevant
note file for the data. This file contains a table with six fields: FILE, POS, REF,
COUNTY, NOTETYPE and NOTEFIELD.
41
FILE
Just as in the master table, this variable represents the ‘GSU-county’, i.e., the county
the GSU allocated the particular record to. It does not always represent the
registration county or the ancient county.
1881 census database
42
43
POS
Just as in the master table, this variable represents the sequential order the HDS
received the data in. This may assist in the sorting process, but is unlikely to be of
great value.
43
REF
The ‘foreign key’ to the main table. However, as has been shown above (p.17) this
field in the main table is not always unique. However, apart from some seriously
problematic counties, like Cornwall, this lack of uniqueness is not important as this
field should be used with the NOTEF field found in the main table. Therefore if the
REF is identical in each table and there is a NOTEF available in the main table the
link is likely to be legitimate.
Note also that the field REF is not unique in the notes table. Some records may have
more than one note relating to them.
44
NOTETYPE
This field contains the name of the field to which a note was made in the CEB.
The names that occur are only those which occur below:
Address
Age
Birth County
Birth Parish
Condition
Entire Record
Forename
Infirmity
Handicapped
Misc
Occupation
Relationship
Surname
Notice that there are two entries in this list which do not refer to fields already
described. These are Entire Record and Misc. These will be discussed below.
Two notes. First the terms infirmity and handicapped seem to be interchangeable,
thus care must be taken when using this information. Second, the spelling of these
field names seem more inconsistent than other data within the database. It is
necessary to check the contents of this field before use.
It should be noted that while the entries above should refer to their respective fields
this is not always the case. Information relating to infirmities might be found under
entire record, and information on addresses might be found in the surname field.
This field should only be taken as a guide, rather than an absolute.
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NOTEFIELD
This field contains the notes for any particular record. It should be used in
conjunction with the field NOTEF in the main table which indicates which field it
refers. Some examples are below. The headings refer to the fields to which they
indicate
45.1 Address
Generally this field was used when overly long addresses occurred. However, the
enumerators often wrote ‘interesting’ information in this column of the CEB which
would not be considered relevant to the production of the census, and as this field
was the largest ‘blank’ space on the CEB information which did not refer to address
was written into this column. This leads to some rather bizarre entries in this field:
Vacant
Used For A Work Shop For The City Perambulator Manufactory
Smithis Foundry No One Sleeps On The Premises
Left Since Last Week
"Not Slept There" Written In Address Field
"9 To Let" Written Here
"Gone Away" Written Here
"Obmitted" Written Here
Could be "Crown Inn"
"Shop With Outdoor Beer Licence"
Pulled Down To Build Vioduct
But Never Renumbered
Paper Taken Away No Person Slept Here On Sunday
For Both Sexes
This field is more commonly used to denote the change of registration district or
parish of enumeration. For example, ‘Holy Trinity’ Written Vertically occurs 566
times in Gloucestershire.
45.2 Age
Wherever ages were given in non-standard forms (i.e. a non-integer a note was
made).
"1 1/2 Mo"
"1 1/2 Yr" Is Age Given On Census
"1 2/3" Is Age Given On Census
"1 Yr 8 Mo"
"1" Appears In Female Column On Census
"Abt 40" Is Age Given On Census
"Infant" Is Written In Age Column On Census
"Un 1 Mo" Is Age Given On Census
Similarly, a note was (sometimes!) made if the age was entered in the wrong gender
column.
"18" Appears In Male Column On Census
"61 Crossed Out In Male Box"
"8" Appears In Female Column On Census
1881 census database
45
45.3 Birth county
Mainly used when something has been added in another hand, but also for
information too long to fit in the original field. For example:
Born On Board The Queen Of The South At Sea Off the Falkland Islands.
45.4 Birth parish
Mainly used when something has been added in another hand. But as with other
fields containing note information odd things happen. Here are some examples from
Gloucestershire. Note that BS is an abbreviation for British Subject.
Must Be Wrong, See Previous Line In Oxfordshire
"N B S" Meaning Naturalised British Subject Written Here
"Paddington" Crossed Out
"Too Ill To Be Questioned" Written Here
(B S)
Aboard Cty not St
Birth C & P Crossed Out Wiltshire Blunsoon
Epileptic
Fits Since Birth
"A" Crossed Out
Imbecile
Written In Parenthses
45.5 Condition
Most frequently this field contains information about whether the information in the
condition column was crossed out or written in another hand. Sometimes it will tell
you whether the original was in a foreign language, and sometimes it will give other
information about conditions:
Wife Left Him
But Separated
Mar? Same Name As Parents
Ammogliato
Nubile
"Mar" In Different Hand
45.6 Entire record
As to be expected this field contains notes which refer to the whole record, indeed
sometimes they refer to the entire house in which one of the records is contained. It
also contains information about people enumerated in error in one area when they
should have been enumerated in another. For example,
Entire Record Gone To Wotton Under Edge DP Act 1882 Written In Address
Column
and, for verbosity:
This House Was At The Last Census Enumerated In Westbury Parish But
Finding That It Is Really In Henbury Parish I Have Placed The
Enumeration Of It Here.
was written by 26 records in Gloucestershire.
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This field also contains information about people who were NOT resident on the
census night. For example,
"No One Slept Here On Sunday Night, Late Inhabitants Gone To Bath"
Written On This Line
It would be wise to consider this information when checking the population of a
sample from the database with the census reports. This information was generally
acted on by the census abstractors.
Other information contained in this field is usually miscellaneous. For example,
"All Military" Written Diagonally Across This Page
Parts Of Record Did Not Survive
Crossed Out This Entry Also Appears On Page 34
Prisoner Detained Sunday Night 3rd April 1881
One Man Lodged in a Caravan By The Roadside About Whom Full Particulars
Could Not Be Ascertained By The Enumerator
45.7 Forename
The contents of this field usually include information about the first name of
individuals recorded, as such this usually refers to very young children, who at the
time of the census had not been named, for example,
Infant
Not Yet Named
Out of Town
Returned Daughter
Not Registered
At Night
Gloucestershire contains one particularly curious entry in this field: To
Let.
45.8 Infirmity/handicapped
Different counties use different names for this field. Sometimes the note contains the
term infirmity, sometimes it uses the term handicapped. This field often contains
interesting information about infirmities which were not specifically asked for by the
census office. For example:
Legs Injured By Falling Off Millstone
Mentally Afflicted Through Being Burnt
Weak Knees
Short Sighted Left Eye-Very Weak Digestion
Defective Memory
"St Vitus Dance"
Bad Cough
Bedridden Decay Of Nature
Neck Grown Out
Invalid Strange Spinal Disease
With Abscesses
Just Came Out Of Workhouse
Rambles Very Much At Times
The Word "Good" Appears On Census
1881 census database
47
45.9 Miscellaneous
This field contains even more miscellaneous material than the others. For example:
Since Making Up This Book When Registaring The Birth Of The Infant Mrs Screen
Informed Me The Child Slept At Failand & Was Registard There
Schedule Left April 2 People For The Country Unexpected April 3rd
As with other note fields, this field should be considered when examining the total
population of an area, as information is often given of a record referring to a person
who was absent on the night of the Census, or details of people who were resident
but not recorded on their separate line.
Also a Man Name Unknown Who Left on the Morning of the 4th For Bangor
Also Included His surname "P" His Forename "I" Age "43"
No One Slept Here But Did At Cardiff
45.10 Occupation
Information about occupation occurs less frequently in the note field, mainly because
there was plenty of space for this information to go into the OCCUP field. However
sometime additional useful information is included in this field. This additional
information usually refers to the number of workers/labourers employed by an
individual or the number of acres farmed by a farmer. For example:
Left House On Saturday
No Of Work People Retained By Partner W. Alexander
Not Dispensing..., Certifying Surgeon Under Factory Act
Parents In Occupation Box Appears In Brackets On Schedule Employing 8
Men & 1 Boy
Taken In For The Night
All These Were Tramps Sleeping For The Night Only The Enumerator Could
Not Get Any Other Information From Them
Mother Married Twice
Student Not Permitted To Attend School By Sch Master Crossed Out
"Where Life Boat Is Kept"
Arrated Water Mfg Emp 7 M 2 B Oil & Color Man Emp 2 M & B Dentist &
Farmer of 47 Ac Emp 2 M 2 Clerks 1 Ofc Boy for Bus Also Gardner
And Boy At Residence
45.11 Relationship
As to be expected this field contains miscellaneous information about relationships
of individuals to the head of household. Sometimes this information seems to have
been inferred (or even guessed by the transcriber). Examples of this field are:
Elizth.Illegitimate
Shopman
Children Of H.Brown Written Vertically
Wife Of Head
Nurse To Sick
"Husband Away"
Nurse To Insane
"Boarder" Crossed Out
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45.12 Surname
This field usually contains additional information about the surname of an
individual. This usually means that it relates to information that had been crossed
out on the CEB. However, other useful information also occurs here. For example:
Inf. Baby Of Frances Yeates
Adopted Name
An Office
Boys And Girls
"HARDING" Written In Different Hand
Condemned By Authorites
Diver should be Driver as Enteries in Marriage & Baptismal Registers and
Previous Census in Bisley Gloucestershire.
As will also be apparent other information, not relating to surname also occurs in
this field.
1881 census database
Appendix A
A.0
49
Geographical boundaries in the 1881 census
Introduction
An understanding of the various geographical units into which Britain was divided
for administrative purposes in 1881 is of vital importance to anyone undertaking
research using this database. In spite of the fact that many of the geographical
entities into which the country was divided were commonly understood, others
were not, and the treatment in the CEBs of some boundaries caused the compilers of
the census reports problems:
The point in which the enumeration books … were found to be most deficient,
and to show the most serious amount of inaccuracy, was the matter of
boundaries.… The boundaries of civil and ecclesiastical parishes, of municipal
and parliamentary boroughs, of urban and rural sanitary districts, of
registration counties and counties in the ordinary sense, not to mention the
numerous other sub-divisions of the country, overlap and intersect each other
with such complexity that the enumerators and local registrars in a vast
number of cases failed altogether to unravel their intricacy.4
Brief definitions of each the various geographical and administrative units into
which England and Wales was divided at the time of each census can be found in
Higgs (1996, pp. 188–202). This Appendix describes in detail each of those areas that
are relevant to the 1881 census and how they are dealt with in the database. Some
units are noted at the top of every page of every CEB, whilst others are taken or
inferred from description pages (see section 0.4.2.1 above). Those units listed below
are in order of size, with the smallest administrative units occurring first.
A.1
England and Wales
A.1.1 Parishes
A.1.1.1
Ancient parish
Strictly speaking, an ‘ancient parish’ is not a geographical area. It is the area over
which an incumbent clergyman exerted an influence, usually from where he drew
his congregation. Those areas that predate the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1597 are
commonly referred to as ancient parishes. It was only from this time forward that
the definitions of boundaries became necessary.
Although the database contains no information on ancient parishes, many civil
parishes bear the same name as the ancient parish in which they fall. For example, in
Essex, the two civil parishes of Laindon and Basildon are listed in the 1881 census
report (vol. 1) as being within the area of the ancient parish of Laindon. This is
4
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV, General Report, BPP 1883, LXXX.1, p.3.
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important because when people gave their parish of birth in the schedules they may
not have been clear about which area they were describing. There are, for example,
numerous examples of ancient parishes listed in the field BIRPARISH, (Section 36
above), (some of which did not even exist in the lifetime of the person being
enumerated).
A.1.1.2
Ecclesiastical parish or district
This piece of information was required at the top of every page of every inland CEB,
including institutions. Ecclesiastical parishes, typically, represent the area served by
a single church although parishes of dissenting religious faiths (including Catholics,
Quakers, etc.) were disregarded by the census office. With the growth in population
in the nineteenth century, especially in urban areas, there was a large increase in the
numbers of churches with many new parishes being formed from parts of older
ones. Often a new parish would consist of parts of more than one mother parish.
There are therefore many more ecclesiastical parishes than civil parishes, although
the area each one served, especially in cities, was often quite restricted. In rural areas
these parishes could still be very large. Ecclesiastical parishes frequently cross other
administrative borders. An ecclesiastical parish may therefore take in part of more
than one county (be it ancient or registration), registration district or civil parish.
The definition of ecclesiastical parish boundaries caused the census office much
trouble—possibly because many originated from ancient parishes with indistinct
boundaries, and certainly because competing clergymen frequently disagreed on the
boundary between two parishes. The database does not hold the ecclesiastical parish
of enumeration for each record, however, the names of ecclesiastical parishes may
occur in the BIRPARISH field if an individual recorded their parish of birth as such.
A.1.1.3
Civil parish (or township)
The civil parish is a purely secular administrative unit. The name of the civil parish
of enumeration was required at the top of every page of every inland CEB, including
institutions. According to the census report, a civil parish was defined as ‘a place in
which a poor rate is separately levied’, although many areas are included in the
census reports which are termed extra-parochial. These include areas such as
cathedral closes, castle precincts, small coastal islets and other liberties. In 1857, and
again in 1869 parliamentary acts laid down that these places were either to appoint
overseers of the poor or be joined to neighbouring parishes. Theoretically there
should have been no such extra-parochial places in 1881, although this was clearly
not the case.
Many civil parishes are whole villages or hamlets, although in urban areas there may
well have been many civil parishes in a single town or city. As these units are closely
linked to the system of poor relief (generally speaking, each parish had an Overseer
of the Poor) they are the basic building blocks of registration districts and hence
registration counties. Since registration counties and ancient counties are not
1881 census database
51
identical, civil parishes frequently cross the borders of ancient counties. This has
caused complications within the structure of the database which are outlined below.
A.1.1.4
Parish Duplications
As mentioned above this database was not created for historical purposes rather for
genealogical research; as such, because the aim of identifying people by their place
of birth was paramount, people enumerated in parishes which straddled a
registration county were usually (but not always) included in more than one county
database. This ensured that as many individuals as possible could be identified in
areas where parish and registration district were not co-terminus. An example of
parishes in Pembroke and Carmarthenshire will be used to demonstrate the rationale
behind some of the decisions of the GSU.
There are a number of differences in the borders of the ancient and registration
counties of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen and some of the parishes that run along
the border between the two counties do not fit into either one or the other county in
their entirety.
Five parishes bisect the Pembroke/Carmarthen county border. Of these one,
Cilymaenllwyd, is an ancient parish that is split into three civil parishes. Two civil
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parishes are in Carmarthen, one in Pembroke. The numbers along the left-hand side
refer to the table on the following page.
1881 Census
Civil Parish
Total Pop.
Cilymaenllwyd:
Carmarthen
Pembroke
Carmarthen
Pembroke
-
-
-
-
87
-
87
-
487
-
487
-
-
-
59
-
59
Kilrhedin
968
766
202
766
203
4 Llandissilio
1015
611
404
611
1017
5 Llanfallteg
390
318
72
319
391
6 Llangan
768
734
34
734
193
1
Castle Dyrran
2
Cilymaenllwyd
3
Grondre
633
GSU Database
It is apparent from this example that the database creators did not follow a
consistent policy when dealing with parishes that crossed county borders.
Sometimes a parish that crossed a county border was included in its entirety in both
one or other of the parishes (for example in the above example this has occurred in
Llandissilio and Llanfallteg where the entire parish is included in the Pembroke
section of the database despite the fact that it the Carmarthen sections are also
included in that county). So, sometimes records are duplicated. On other occasions this
has not occurred (as with Kilrhedin and the ancient parish of Cilymaenllwyd).
A.1.2 Town, village or hamlet
Information regarding the name of the town, village or hamlet of enumeration was
required on each page of the CEB. Frequently, this was identical to the parish of
enumeration, especially with villages and rural areas. In urban areas, however, there
were frequently several parishes to each town. There is no direct reference to this
information (excepting incidental remarks in the parish of enumeration) in the
distributed database. This usually provides ample evidence of the name of the town,
village or hamlet under enumeration.
A.1.3 City (municipal borough) and parliamentary borough
These terms were required at the head of each page in the CEBs. Cities are
conurbations with the control over their own affairs (i.e. exempt from the control of
the county) and Municipal Boroughs were first created under the Municipal
Corporations Act of 1835. They possessed similar privileges to cities, although the
term borough derives from a Saxon times. Parliamentary boroughs were created in
1832 at the Great Reform Act. These areas sent MPs to Parliament.
Parliamentary and municipal boroughs do not necessarily have the same
boundaries. If an enumeration district was wholly or partially within a city or
1881 census database
53
municipal borough enumerator’s were required to enter the appropriate name on
the top of each page of their enumeration book. If their district crossed a city or
borough boundary then the end of the city or borough was to be noted on the page,
no more information was to be entered on that page and the enumeration would
continue on the next page. The database creators used this data only indirectly. If, for
example, the parish of St. Thomas in the city of Winchester were being enumerated
the PARISH field (see Section 16 above) may contain the entry Winchester St.
Thomas rather than simply St. Thomas.
A.1.4 Sanitary districts (urban and rural)
Between the 1871 and 1881 censuses new administrative unit were created (by the
Public Health Acts of 1874 and 1875). Urban areas were organised into Urban
Sanitary Districts and the remaining parts of the country were divided into Rural
Sanitary Districts, according to their Poor Law Unions.
This additional unit meant that an additional question at the top of each page of the
CEBs had to be asked, and this apparently caused a ‘great addition to the labour’,
presumably because enumerators were not familiar with these districts.5 Neither
rural nor urban sanitary districts are included in the database in any form. At this
time there were no sanitary districts in Scotland.
A.1.5 Registration sub-district
As part of the organisation of civil registration civil parishes were grouped together
into larger districts known as Registration sub-districts. A resident registrar was
appointed for each. These units also sometimes crossed the borders of the ancient
counties, and it was not uncommon for parishes to be split between more than one
sub-district. This was particularly common in urban areas where one town or city
may have been split into several sub-districts.
The Registration sub-district in which an individual was enumerated is not given in
the database however it can be ascertained from the census reports [vol. 2] using the
information on Registration District and parish of enumeration found in the
database. The Registration-sub district is a useful geographical unit for research as
data is almost always given to at least this level in the Registrar General’s Annual
Reports.
A.1.6 Registration districts
In 1881 there were 630 registration districts in England and Wales, each headed by a
superintendent registrar.6 These units were not created specifically for census
purposes but for the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths, which began
5
6
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV, General Report, BPP 1883, LXXX.1, p.4. Urban
sanitary districts were seen to be particularly problematic.
Census of England and Wales, 1881, Vol. IV, General Report, BPP 1883, LXXX.1, p.5.
54
Documentation v0.3
in 1837. A registration district originally comprised of a group of Poor Law Unions,
although by 1881 a number of changes had occurred which meant that they were not
strictly identical to those created in 1837. Each enumeration book had the name and
number of the registration district (see section 0.3.2.1 above) penned onto it.
Registration districts sometimes crossed ancient county boundaries, but never
registration county boundaries.
A.1.7 Counties
The various terms used to define the county are easily confused. Counties are
mentioned in four different fields within the database, and it is not always clear
which ‘type’ of county is being referred to.
A.1.7.1
Ancient county (aka the ‘county proper’)
The terms ‘ancient’ county, or ‘county proper’ were used interchangeably by census
authorities to denote the geographical units into which England, Wales and Scotland
were divided from medieval times, although most English counties predate the
Norman Conquest. In 1832 county borders were redrawn and the ‘parliamentary
county’ was no longer coterminus with the ancient county, although the term
persisted. When questioned on county of birth in the census, householders
invariably took this to mean the ancient county as it was this term that is commonly
understood as the ‘county in the ordinary sense’ (another term occasionally used by
census authorities). Sometimes the term administrative county is also used to
describe the ancient county, although the ‘administrative county’ came into existence
only after the 1888 Local Government Act.
The database reflects the understanding of ancient counties, with the field
BIRCOUNTYENU containing information relating to the (ancient) county of birth as
enumerated. This in turn was standardised in the field BIRCOUNTYSTA, added by
the GSU (see Sections 34 and 35 and Appendix E).
A.1.7.2
Registration county (aka Poor Law county)
The term registration county was not in common usage. The registration county is a
grouping of registration districts in a geographically distinct area. Each registration
county bears some resemblance to the ancient county, but they are rarely identical.
Registration counties were based upon the Poor Law Unions created in 1834, and as
these were created by grouping together parishes without regard to ancient county
boundaries, each registration county may contain parishes that lie in more than one
ancient county. Originally, therefore, no parish would have crossed the boundary of
any registration county, or district. However, due to the alterations in the boundaries
of registration counties this does occur once in the 1881 census. (The parish of
Wilbarston, split between the registration districts of Kettering and Market
Harborough, in the counties of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire.) There were
the same number of registration counties as ancient counties in England, whilst
1881 census database
55
Wales was divided into only two registration counties (North Wales and South
Wales—see Registration Division XI below). The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
were small units remaining outside this system.
The CEBs contain little relating to registration counties. It follows, therefore, that
there is little in the database relating to registration counties. An important exception
to this, however, are the fields COUNTYENU and COUNTYSTD which do,
sometimes, contain the registration county of enumeration, rather than the
administrative county of enumeration. It is possible, though unlikely, that an
occasional householder may have inserted his or her registration county of birth.
A.1.7.3
Problems
The problems associated with parishes (see section A.1.1) also affect the county of
enumeration field in the database. Where records are duplicated, they will have
different counties of enumeration depending which part of the database one
examines. For example, in the example shown above, records relating to Llandissilio
will occur in both Pembroke and Carmarthen. The 404 people living in
Pembrokeshire will have Pembrokeshire listed as their parish of enumeration but the
611 people living in Carmarthenshire will be duplicated. On one occasion they will
be listed as having been in enumerated in Pembrokeshire, on the other in
Carmarthenshire.
NOTE: It is possible for a parish to be divided between two ancient counties and be
included in a third registration county. The parish of Helion Bumpstead, for
example, is divided between the ancient counties of Cambridgeshire and Essex, but
is in the registration county of Suffolk. This causes a further complication to where
these people are included in the database.
A.1.8 Registration divisions
For the purposes of the census, a division is a group of registration counties. There
were 10 divisions in England in 1881, with Wales (including Monmouthshire)
comprising the 11th. The islands and Scotland were not divided in this manner. Each
division is listed below. Note that these divisions are not represented in the database
and that they refer to the registration counties not the ancient counties.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
LONDON
The intra-metropolitan areas of Middlesex, Kent and Surrey.
SOUTH-EASTERN DIVISION
Surrey & Kent (extra-Metropolitan), Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire.
SOUTH MIDLAND DIVISION
Middlesex (extra-Metropolitan), Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire, Northants, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire.
EASTERN DIVISION
Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk.
SOUTH-WESTERN DIVISION
56
Documentation v0.3
Wiltshire, Dorset, Devonshire, Cornwall, Somersetshire.
VI.
WEST MIDLAND DIVISION
Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire,
Shropshire,
Staffordshire,
Worcestershire, Warwickshire.
VII. NORTH MIDLAND DIVISION
Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire.
VIII NORTH-WESTERN DIVISION
Cheshire, Lancashire.
IX.
YORKSHIRE DIVISION
Yorkshire (North, East and West Ridings).
X.
NORTHERN DIVISION
Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland.
XI.
WALES DIVISION
Monmouthshire, South Wales (Glamorganshire, Carmarthenshire,
Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, Brecknockshire, Radnorshire), North
Wales (Montgomeryshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Merionethshire,
Carnarvonshire, Anglesey).
The Welsh division deserves a short note. Wales was divided into three ‘registration
counties’—Monmouth, North Wales and South Wales. The counties that made up
the registration counties of North and South Wales are neither coterminus with the
ancient counties nor described in the relevant literature as registration counties.
1881 census database
Appendix B
57
Information relating to Wales
Welsh returns
In Wales, in places where people either could not or would not complete schedules
in English, Welsh translations of the schedules were provided. The enumerator,
however, was instructed to complete his enumeration book(s) in English, adding a
W to the first column of the main body of the CEB. This information was not
collected by the GSU.
Appendix C
Information relating to vessels
The 1881 Census, like its successors and predecessors, collected information not only
on residents on land but also those residents on vessels, and all other people on
board ship within British waters. The information about a vessel and its residents
was included in the census enumeration district in which the vessel was moored or if
the vessel was not in port on Census night the port in which it had previously been
moored or if the vessel was not it port on census night the port in which it had
previously been moored. Vessels which docked in British ports within 28 days of
census night were still expected to complete a schedule. As these schedules were
different from the household schedules and because many of them were collected
later they have usually survived, i.e., they were not copied out from the schedule
into the enumerators’ books, but remain in their original format.
This section describes the Schedule for Vessels, though many vessels were
enumerated on ordinary schedules.
The schedules for vessels were usually bound together within CEBs and thus in the
database the information relating to where a vessel to be located for the purposes of
calculating population was taken from the title page of the CEB within which the
schedule was bound, or within an earlier CEB for the same registration district.
Transcribers were instructed not to take the information identifying the location of
the vessel from the Schedule of Vessels, which only provides information about the
home port of the vessel or the port to which the schedule was delivered after
completion. For example the SS. Elena, which at Midnight on April 3 1881 was at sea
at N 46º 10’ E 4º 43’ (around one hundred miles from it’s destination, the port of
Bilboa, northern Spain and almost seven hundred miles from it’s port of departure,
Liverpool, where the master had been given the schedule). The schedule was,
(perhaps curiously, as the Elena was well out of British waters, deep in the Bay of
Biscay) enumerated in the Enumeration District of Toxteth Park in Liverpool.
The information on the front of the schedule states that the vessel was called the
‘Elena /SS/’, that it had no official number, that it belonged to the port of Bilboa,
had a net tonnage of 412 tons, was described as a ‘Foreign screw steamer’. The
master was named as ‘Tomas Aguirre’, and none of the crew were on shore!
58
Documentation v0.3
Though the transcriber was instructed to take the information about the place of
enumeration from the ‘title page’ of the enumeration book, they were instructed to
take the name of the vessel from the instruction page of the schedule (note that the
name is also repeated on the main page of the schedule and discrepancies may
occur). The names of all vessels within the database have been standardised to the
extent that each name has been prefixed by a capital V followed by a dash and the
name of the vessel is contained within inverted commas, e.g., V-’Elena’.
The information on the instruction page will also have been transcribed and should
be found in the note field. This information only relates to the official number, the
port to which the vessel belonged, its master, tonnage and a brief description of the
vessel. Transcribers were instructed not to note the position of the vessel at midnight
on Census night or where the schedule was given to the master of the vessel. Vessels
on canals were usually enumerated on ordinary schedules, as were vessels in dock,
port or only away for a short period. In these cases, none of the information which
would have been listed on the front of a vessel schedule was collected.
Figure 3, shows that the questions on vessel schedules was slightly different to those
asked for on ordinary schedules; this is reflected within the datafiles. The address
field contains the name of the vessel. In the first record in a datafile it is proceeded
by an exclamation mark, if the record was enumerated on a separate vessel schedule.
(If not there is no exclamation mark.) This record is a header. For the individuals on
board the HOUSEENU, RELENU and RELSTD fields will be empty as no relevant
information was collected. All other fields were subject to the same transcription
rules as those individuals transcribed on ordinary householders’ schedules.
Information on vessels are thus found in two parts of the datafile. First, the general
information about the ship is found in a note file:
file
pos
ref
county
notetype
notefield
corn
6813
CON0000175690
CON
Entire Record
No.- ---; Port-Kragero Norway; Master-Ch. Jorgansen;
Tonnage-214; Desc.-Barque, Foreign Trade.
The reference number (REF) should provide a link to the main data, in this case in
the county file for Cornwall (actually it doesn’t, but it should). The records which
follow are the complete group of records which relate to this ship, the Gymer. The
first record has the same format which has already been seen in Section 22.2.2, but
there is no double tick mark in the HOUSEENU field.
address
!V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
houseenu houstd
Self
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
V-"GYMER"
sname
fname
relenu
relstd
V-"GYMER"
JORGANSEN
CHRISTIANSEN
HANSEN
KNUDSEN
HANSEN
HILBORG
THOMASSEN
Christofer
Christian
Hans
Knud
Jorgen
Alfred
Kjal
Head
---------------
Head
---------------
59
1881 census database
Appendix D
Information relating to institutions
While the majority of the population of Great Britain resided in households a
number were resident in what the Census Office described as institutions. To the
Census Office institutions were buildings or organisations which housed many
people. Schools, jails, orphanages, barracks and hotels all fall into this category.
Information about institutions was usually included in the enumeration district in
which the institution was located, however, those larger institutions (usually those
with more than 200 residents) were enumerated in an Enumeration Book for
Institutions. Smaller institutions were generally enumerated on the standard
schedule and into an ordinary enumeration book.
The content of the schedules for institutions will be clear from Figure 2, which shows
a transcription of an institutional CEB. As will be clear from the illustration, the
information asked for was almost identical to that asked the householder. (The
exception being that the ‘relationship’ column refers to Relation to Head of Family or
Position within institution.) The GSU transcribed separately enumerated institutions
to the same rules as the ordinary household CEBs. The main difference will be found
in the database where each institution has a ‘header’ record which contains other
information about the institution, i.e. its name. These records remain within the
database and will have either to be removed or taken into consideration when any
analysis is performed on the data. A sequence of records relating to an institution
should contain a record which looks like the second in this example:
address
houseenu houstd
I-"House Of Mercy" //
!I-"House Of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
I-"House of Mercy"
Self
Self
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
I-"HOUSE
sname
OF
OF
OF
OF
OF
OF
OF
OF
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
MERCY"
relenu
JONES
Head
I-"HOUSE OF MERCY" Head
WALTER
--FIELD
--FIELD
--WELBERRY
--SHACKLES
--PARKER
Visitor
BOWLEY
Servant
HOOPER
Inmate
Note that the first record relates to a separate person who heads the institution.
(Anna Jones’ occupation is given as Sister of Mercy.) The second record relates to the
institution itself and not to a person. It represents a dummy head for the inmates,
servants and other ‘sister’s of mercy’.
Some larger institutions are on ordinary schedules whilst some containing less than
200 residents are in CEBs for institutions. This is because institutional schedules
were issued according to the number inmates thought to be in the institutions some
months before the census was taken and changes in the size of institutions after this
was not taken into account. This is important because the Census was taken in the
Easter months and many academic institutions (esp. Oxford and Cambridge) would
have been enumerated on institutional schedules despite the fact that they
sometimes contained fewer than 200 people.
60
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Appendix E
County and Country Code
The codes used by the GSU have been standardised. The following table contains the
list of codes used. This list should be complete for England, Wales and Scotland,
though there may be some variants which have not been seen. The list of codes for
places outside of Great Britain is almost certainly incomplete; when all of the data
has been received this list will be revised. Note that the codes used by the GSU are
not always the same as those known as Chapman codes.
England
ENG
England
BDF
BEK
BUK
CAM
CHS
CON
CUL
DBY
DEV
DOR
DUR
ESS
GLS
HAM
HEF
HRT
HUN
IOW
KEN
LAN
LEC
LIN
MID
MID
MNM
NFK
NTH
NTM
NTT
OXF
RUT
SHR
SOM
STF
SUF
SUR
SUS
Bedfordshire (also BED)
Berkshire
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
Cheshire
Cornwall (and Isles of Scilly)
Cumberland
Derbyshire
Devon
Dorset
Durham
Essex
Gloucestershire
Hampshire
Herefordshire
Hertfordshire
Huntingdonshire
Isle of Wight
Kent (including Isle Of Sheppy)
Lancashire
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
London
Middlesex
Monmouthshire
Norfolk (also NRF)
Northamptonshire
Northumberland
Nottinghamshire
Oxfordshire
Rutland
Shropshire
Somerset
Staffordshire (also STA)
Suffolk
Surrey
Sussex
WAR
WES
WIL
WOR
YKS
Warwickshire
Westmorland
Wiltshire
Worcestershire
Yorkshire
Wales
WAL Wales
AGY
BRE
CAE
CGN
CHH
DBG
FLN
GLA
MER
MNT
PEM
RAD
Anglesey
Brecknockshire
Caernarvonshire
Cardiganshire (also CGD)
Carmarthenshire
Denbighshire
Flintshire (also FNN)
Glamorganshire
Merionethshire
Montgomeryshire
Pembrokeshire
Radnorshire
British Isles (Other)
ADY
GSY
HRM
IOM
IOS
IRE
JSY
SAR
Alderney
Guernsey
Herm
Isle of Man
Isles of Scilly (included with
Cornwall for enumeration but can
appear separately for birthplace)
Ireland
Jersey
Sark
61
1881 census database
Scotland
Africa
SCT
Scotland
AFR
ABD
ANG
ARL
AYR
BAN
BEW
BUT
CAI
CLK
DUF
DUN
EDN
ELG
FIF
FOR
HAD
INV
KNC
KNR
KRK
LAK
LNL
MOR
NAI
ORK
PEE
PER
RFW
ROC
ROX
SEL
STI
SUT
WIG
ZET
Aberdeenshire
Angus (cf. Forfar)
Argyleshire
Ayrshire
Banff
Berwickshire
Isle Of Bute
Caithnesshire
Clackmannanshire
Dumfriesshire
Dunbartonshire
Edinburgh
Elgin (cf. Morray)
Fife
Forfar (cf. Angus)
Haddington
Invernesshire
Kincardine
Kinross
Kirkcudbrightshire
Lanark
Linlithgow
Morray (cf. Elgin)
Nairn
Orkney
Peebles
Perthshire
Renfrewshire
Ross and Cromarty
Roxburghshire
Selkirkshire
Stirling
Sutherland
Wigtonshire
Shetland
ALG Algeria
CAP Cape of Good Hope (aka Cape
Colony)
EGY Egypt
ETH Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
GAM Gambia
LIB
Liberia
MAD Madagascar
MOC Morocco
MOZ Mozambique
SEN Senegal
SIE
Sierra Leone
SOF South Africa
SUD Sudan
TUN Tunisia
ZAN Zanzibar
Africa
North America
NOA North America
CEM Central America
AME
ANT
BAH
BAR
BER
CAN
CAR
COS
CUB
GRE
GUE
HND
HTI
JAM
MEX
NIC
PAN
TOB
TRI
USA
WSI
America
Antigua
Bahamas
Barbados
Bermuda
Canada
Caribbean
Costa Rica
Cuba
Grenada
Guatemala
British Honduras
Haiti
Jamaica
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Tobago
Trinidad
United States America
West Indies
62
Documentation v0.3
Asia and Australasia
Europe
ASI
AUT
BAV
BDN
BLG
BUL
COR
CRE
CYP
DEN
FIN
FRA
GER
GIB
GRC
GRE
HES
HNG
ICE
ION
ITA
LTH
LUX
MAL
MDR
MNO
NEL
NOR
POL
PRT
PRU
ROM
RUS
SAX
SRB
SPN
SWD
SWZ
TUR
WUR
YUG
ADE
AFG
ARA
ARM
AUS
BOR
BRI
BUR
CEY
CHN
EIN
FIJ
GOA
HNK
IDI
Asia or Asia Minor
Aden
Afghanistan
Arabia
Armenia
Australia
Borneo
Madura (Madras?)
Burma
Ceylon
China
East Indies
Fiji Islands
Goa
Hong Kong
India (including British India,
Hindustan, and North West
Provinces, etc.)
INO Dutch East Indies (Indonesia?)
IRA Persia (Iran) (also IRN)
JAV Java
JPN Japan
MAU Mauritius
MLA Malaya
MUS Muscat
NEZ New Zealand
PAL Palestine (also ISR)
PHL Philippine Islands
THI Siam (Thailand)
SIN
Singapore
SYR Syria
Austrian Empire
Bavaria
Baden
Belgium
Bulgaria
Corfu (also COF)
Crete
Cyprus
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Hesse
Hungary
Iceland
Ionian Islands
Italy (also Sicily and Sardinia)
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Madeira
Monaco
Holland (Netherlands)
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Prussia (including West Prussia)
Roumania
Russia
Saxony
Serbia (Servia)
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Wurtemberg
Yugoslavia/Jugoslavia
63
1881 census database
South America
Other islands
SOA
South America
ASC
ATS
ARG
BOL
BRA
CHL
COL
ECU
GUY
PAU
PEU
SUR
UUG
VEN
Argentine Republic
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Columbia
Ecuador
British Guiana
Paraguay
Peru
Surinam
Uruguay
Venezuela
Ascension Islands
At Sea (including ‘On the Seas’,
Indian Ocean, etc.)
BAY Bay of Biscay
CNY Canary Islands
COM Comoros Islands
FAL Falkland Islands
GUA Guam
SAM Samoa
SEY Seychelles
STH St. Helena
TAH Tahiti
TON Friendly Isles (Tonga)
VIR
Virgin Islands
64
Appendix F
Documentation v0.3
Select Bibliography
This bibliography contains material related to the creation, and use of this database
and some basic guides to the use of the Census Enumerators’ Books.
Anderson, Michael, Introductory user guide, national sample from the 1851 census of
Great Britain (Edinburgh, 1987).
Armstrong, W. A., ‘The census enumerators’ books: a commentary’, in R. Lawton
(ed.) The Census and Social Structure (London, 1978).
Higgs, Edward, Clearer sense of the census (London, 1996).
Lumas, Susan, Making use of the census (London, 1992).
Mills, Dennis & Schürer, Kevin, eds, Local communities in the Victorian census
enumerators’ books (Oxford, 1996).
Wrigley, E. A., ed., Nineteenth-century society: essays in the use of quantitative methods
for the study of social history (Cambridge, 1972.
Woollard, Matthew, ‘Creating a machine-readable version of the 1881 census of
England and Wales’ in Charles Harvey and Jon Press, Databases in Historical
Research (London, 1996).
Young, Stephen C., ‘The British 1881 census project’, paper presented to the
Association for History and Computing (UK Branch) Conference, University
of Hull, 13 April 1994.
In the preparation of this guide we have also drawn on the many of the guides and
documentation produced by the Genealogical Society of Utah. Those that can be
cited are:
How Transcribe the Scottish Census (Salt Lake City, n.d.)
British 1881 Census Project Newsletter, Vols 1-4 (1992–5).
It should also be noted that the correct method to cite the database as a whole is:
1881 Census Enumerators’ Books. Genealogical Society of Utah, Federation of Family
Historians, 1881 Census for England and Wales, the Channel Isles and the Isle of
Man [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: The Data Archive [distributor], 29 July
1997. SN 3643.
The undermentioned Houses are situate within the Boundaries of the
Civil Parish of
St. Cuthbert
Quoad Sacra Parish
of Newington
School Board District
of Edinburgh
Parliamentary Burgh
of Edinburgh
Royal Burgh of
Police Burgh of
Town of
Village or Hamlet of
HOUSES
No. of
Schedule
4
5
6
I
Road, Street,
&c. and No. or
Name of
House
7, Hamilton St
8, Do.
8, Do.
U
or
B
I
I
I
7
9, Do.
8
1, Bird Lane
Whether
Name and Surname
of each Person
Relation to
Head of
Family
Condition
as to
Marriage
Age
(last Birthday)
31
Spirit Dealer
Where born
William Morrison
Head
Mar.
Mary J. Do.
Wife
Mar.
Ellen Do.
Daur.
Elizabeth Morrison
Mother
W.
58
Annuitant
Do.
Anne Fox
Serv.
Unm.
28
General Serv.
Perthshire, Errol
Catherine Doyle
Serv.
Unm.
24
Barmaid
Ireland
Peter Newton
Head
Mar.
Emma Do.
Wife
Mar.
William Do.
Son
Ronsetta Do.
Daur.
George Duff
Shopman
Unm.
Jane Cock
Serv.
Unm.
James F. Bruce
Head
Mar.
Harriet Do.
Wife
Mar.
Sophia White
Serv.
Unm.
Walter Campbell
Lodger
Unm.
23
72
29
(1) Deaf-and-Dumb
(2) Blind
(3) Imbecile or Idiot
(4) Lunatic
Edinburghsire, St. Cuthbert
7
Fifeshire, Cupar
7 mo.
39
Lanarkshire, Glasgow
Grocer (Master, employing 2 men)
36
9
19
22
41
Forfarshire, Dundee
Do.
Do.
Grocer’s Shopman
Stirlingshire, Falkirk
General Serv.
England
29
Do.
Deaf and Dumb from Birth
Bannfshire, Rathhuen
Do.
16
4
Kirkbean
Scholar
Banker’s Clerk
Imbecile
Kirkcudbrightshire, Minnigaff
Do.
12
Do.
3
Do.
General Serv.
Ayrshire, Kilmarnock
Ship Carpenter (out of employ)
Renfrewshire, Greenock
1
Berwickshire, Coldstream
2
1U
I
9
Do.
John Gilmour
Head
Mar.
Anne Do.
Wife
Mar.
Coach Trimmer
Thomas Johnston
Head
Widr.
68
Retired Grocer
Dumfrieshire, Annan
Henry Do.
Son
Unm.
39
Organist
Perthshire, Dunblane
Emma Do.
Neice
Unm.
41
Dress Maker
Roxburghsire, Kelso
Jane Brodie
Apprentice
Unm.
18
Dress Maker (Apprentice)
Lanarkshire, Airdie
69
Do.
Do.
5
Blind
2B
End
Total of Houses
Rank, Profession or Occupation
Rooms with
one or more
windows
4
1U
2B
Total of Males and Females
Figure 1: Example page from Scottish Census, 1881
9
of
Quoad Sacra Parish of Newington
13
Total of Windowed Rooms
22
RETURN OF ALL THE PERSONS WHO SLEPT OR ABODE IN THIS INSTITUTION ON THE NIGHT OF SUNDAY, APRIL 3rd 1881.
NAME AND SURNAME
No person ABSENT on the Night of Sunday, April 3rd,
to be entered here - EXCEPT those TRAVELLING
during that night and who ARRIVE ON THE
MORNING OF MONDAY, APRIL 4TH.
Write the Name of the Head of Institution, the
names of his Wife, Children and other relatives;
Officers, Visitors, Servants, &c.; and finally the
special INMATES.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Richard Joseph Ireland
Hester Ann Peters
Mary Ann Cannell
Jane Elizabeth Corkish
John Shimmin
Hugh Joseph Kennaugh
John Robert Lock
Ellinor Clague
Isabella Amelia Roney
Mary Agnes Fitzpatrick
Margaret Cowley
Anne Cain
Margaret Elizabeth Christian
Margaret Jonghin
Catherine Jane Cowen
William Richard Cowen
Kate O’Malley
Ellinor Collins
(1) RELATION to
Head of Family - or
(2) Position in the
Institution
CONDITION as
to MARRIAGE
State whether
Wife, Son, Daughter,
or other Relatives;
Visitor, Officer, Servant,
&c. and give the
Designation
of Inmates.
Write either “Married,”
“Widower,” “Widow,”
or “Unmarried,”
opposite the Names of
all Persons except
Young Children.
AGE
Married
Unmarried
Unmarried
Unm
Married
Widower
Married
Widow
Unmarried
Unmarried
Widow
Widow
Unmarried
Widow
WHERE BORN
(Before filling up this Column, you are
Opposite the names of those born in England, write
the County, and the Town or Parish.
requested to read the
If born in Scotland, Ireland, the British Colonies,or the
East Indies, state the Country or Colony.
Instructions on page ii).
If born in Foreign parts, write the particular State or
Country; and if also a British Subject, add “British
Subject” or “Naturalized British Subject” as the case may
be.
Last Birthday
For infants under One Year,
state the Age
in Months, writing “Under 1
month,”
“1 Month,”
“2 Months,” &c.
MALE
House Physician
Matron
Servant
Servant
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
Inmate
RANK, PROFESSION OR OCCUPATION
FEMALE
41
49
23
22
46
36
4
47
37
17
37
60
15
60
12
4
26
60
Figure 2: Example of a “Institutional” CEB [RG 5606 f.3 p.1]
Licentiate Of College Of Physicians Dublin
Certificated Nurse
Cook Domestic Servant
Housemaid Domestic Servant
Car Proprietor
Journeyman Shoemaker
----Charwoman
Housemaid Domestic Servant
General Domestic Servant
Boot & Shoe Binder
General Domestic Servant
Working In Canvas Factory
Scholar
--Chambermaid Domestic Servant
Lodginghouse Keeper
Galway, Ireland
Wranall, Somerset, England
Kirk Marown, Isle of Man
Kirk Michael, Isle of Man
Onchan, Isle of Man
Kirk Malew, Isle of Man
Kirk Braddan, Isle of Man
Kirk Lonan, Isle of Man
Douglas, Isle of Man
Dublin, Ireland
Galway, Ireland
Kirk Braddan
Lezare, Isle of Man
Kirk Lonan, Isle of Man
Kirk Onchan, Isle of Man
Kirk Onchan, Isle of Man
Liverpool, England
Castletown, Isle of Man
If (1) Deaf-and-Dumb
(2) Blind
(3) Imbecile or Idiot
(4) Lunatic
Write the
respective Infirmities
opposite the name
of the afflicted Persons;
and if so from
Birth, add
“from Birth”.
LIST of OFFICERS, CREW, and OTHERS on BOARD the SHIP or VESSEL named the
on the NIGHT of SUNDAY, APRIL 3rd, 1881.
NAME AND SURNAME
Write, after the Name of the Master, the Names
of the Officers and Crew;
and then the Names of the Passengers
and of all other Persons
CONDITION as
to MARRIAGE
AGE
RANK, PROFESSION OR OCCUPATION
Flying Huntress
WHERE BORN
Last Birthday
State here the rank of the Officers, and the rating of the
Men and Boys of the Crew.
The rank or occupation of the Passengers should be stated
as fully and as clearly as possible.
Write either “Married,”
“Widower,” “Widow,” or
“Unmarried,” opposite
the Names of all
Persons except Young
Children.
MALE
FEMALE
Opposite the names of those born in
England, write the County, and Town or Parish.
If born in Scotland, Ireland, the British Colonies,or the
East Indies, state the Country or Colony.
If born in Foreign parts, write the particular
State or Country; and if also a British Subject, add “British Subject,” or
“Naturalized British Subject” as the case may be.
1
John Lindsay
Mar
32
Master
Jura G, Argyleshire
2
Neil Darroch
Mar
32
Mate
Jura G, Argyleshire
3
William Spencer
Mar
40
Engine Driver
Kilmarnock, Ayrshire
4
Archd. McAlister
Mar
55
Fireman
Millport, Argyleshire
5
Charles Boyle
Mar
36
Fireman
Donegal County, Narin
6
Michel Carns
Mar
43
Fireman
Donegal County, Dramco
7
John Nicholson
Unm
26
Deckhand
Drumfarn, Invernesshire
8
John Blair
Unm
22
Deckhand
Jura G, Argyleshire
9
John Leitch
Mar
40
A B Seaman
Greenock, Renfrewshire
10
Nathaniel Logan
Mar
41
A B Seaman
Greenock, Renfrewshire
11
Daniel Cleary
Mar
47
A B Seaman
Greenock, Renfrewshire
12
Nicholas Young
Mar
49
A B Seaman
Amsterdam, Holand
13
John Watson
Mar
38
A B Seaman
Liverpool, Lankashire
14
Thomas Macfarlane
Mar
37
A B Seaman
Greenock, Renfrewshire
15
Daniel Campbell
Mar
58
A B Seaman
Campeleton, Argyleshire
16
William Rogerson
Mar
35
A B Seaman
Liverpool, Lankashire
17
Figure 3: Example of a “Vessel” CEB [RG/11 5601 f.30 unpag.]
If (1) Deaf-and-Dumb
(2) Blind
(3) Imbecile or Idiot
(4) Lunatic
Write the
respective Infirmities
opposite the name
of the afflicted Persons;
and if so from
Birth, add
“from Birth”.