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I am sure I am right in saying that the Census Returns prior to 1841 were purely numerical,
Anna
Yes - that's exactly what I was told and hence I never even asked the question after that.
But the bits and pieces I have picked up now are as follows:
- The first 4 censuses were conducted at parish level - with summaries being sent to central government.
- Although information collected was much less than later years it included the following:
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The 1801 census was in two parts: the first was concerned with the number of people, their occupations, and numbers of families and houses. The second was a collection of the numbers of baptisms, marriages and burials, thus giving an indication of the rate at which the population was increasing or decreasing.
I am guessing that there may have been an instruction that once the summaries had been forwarded the originals shouild be destroyed - but a few simply slipped through the net.
The "parish chest" was the depository for important documents back then. Could be that a few just got put in there by mistake.
Indeed that is the source of these ones here. I was looking through a list of items passed from the "parish chest" to the local archive for a map allocating land under the Inclosure Acts. Sods law - I didn't find what I was looking for - but I did spot this reference to records of the 1811 Census. When it comes to it they may be quite boring and nondescript but it can't do any harm to take a look.
I probably shouldn't admit it but I have a strange fascination with these administrative processes of 200 years ago -
it takes all sorts!!
MB