Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    THE CENSUS OF 1871. Early in the year 1870, in view of the approaching Census, the Council of the Statistical Society addressed the Secretary of State for the Home Department, submitting the following recommendations for the consideration of the Government in preparing the Census Bill to be laid before Parliament:— 1. That it is advisable that the Census of 1871 should be taken at the same time of the year as the last Census. 2. Two collateral bi'anches of inquiry were prosecuted in 1851 by means of the Census machinery, but not under the compulsory powers of the statute. These related to—(c<.) The provision existing for religious woi-ship, lud the attendance thereon ; (h.) The means existing for education, and the attendance at schools and places of instruction. The Council, in 1860, were of opinion that both these collateral subjects should be inquired into at the Census of 18131, and made their recommendation accordingly in April, 1860. This recommendation was not sdopted by the Government of the day. The Council having again considered this part of the inquiry, and having i-egard to the lapse of time since the investigation of 1851, think it expedient that the same subjects should in like manner be inquired into at the Census of 1871. 3. They are also of opinion that the statute to be passed on the present occasion should further contain an jxpress enactment requiring that a distinct question should be inserted in every Census schedule as to the religious persuasion of the persons included in that schedule. 4. That the statute should also require that the person filling up the schedule should state whether every individual mentioned therein above the age of seven years can read or write. 5. That inquiries to show the state of the house accommodation of the people on the basis adopted with so much success in the last Census of Scotland should be embodied in the next Census returns for England. And, subsequently, the Executive Committee of the Social Science Association brought under the notice of the Government the expediency of a uniform Census for the United Kingdom; and, in iddition to suggestions of a similar nature to those of the Statistical Society, offered the following:— 1. That it would be of great utility if the Government would direct the Census Commissioners for the United Kinodom, in 1871, to undertake as a subsidiary inquiry an Industrial Census. 2. That an annual enumeration of the numbers and ages of the population is greatly needed for all the principal cities and towns in the kingdom. The Government, however, did not apparently see its way to adopting any of the foregoing sug- gestions, and the English Census Bill of 1870 was almost a verbatim reprint of the Census Act of 1860. During the progress of the Bill in the House of Commons repeated discu-ssions arose in reference to the desirability of enlarging the scope of the inquiry ; a proj osal to ascertain the number of imbecile or lunatic persons among the general population was acceded to and embodied in the Bill; a motion for including religious profession among the particulars to be obtained was lost by 77 to 96 votes ; and Sir Jolin Lubbock's desire that the number of marriages between first cousins should form part of the information required was negatived by 92 to 4.5 votes. On the third reading Mr. Bass moved the recommittal of the Bill, in order that the following clause might be inserted :— The Secretary of State shall obtain, by such ways and means, and at such day or days immediately after the Jay appointed for the Census as shall appear to him best adapted for the purpose, an account of the establishments, iactories, works, shops, or other properties or premises occupied for, and in connection with, each branch of ndustry, commerce, or manufacture, and of every farm or holding in occupation for agricultural purposes, the lumber of persons employed in them, whether resident or non-resident therein, with their sex and ages, distin- guishing the employers from the employed, the rates of wages paid in the week preceding such enumeration to ;very class of labourers or artisans so employed, the agents used in the several processes of production by animals, iools, machines, or vessels, and such other particulars as, in tlie opinion of the Secretary of State, may exhibit the jccupation of the people and the organization of labour in England. The Home Secretary objected to the clause, saying that there were many matters of detail connected vith the proposition wliich would render it impossible to carry it out, and Mr. Bass's motion was vithdrawD. The English Census for 1871 differs from that of 1861, so far as the information supplied by the louseholder's schedule is concerned, only to the extent of showing how many idiots or lunatics there vcre at the Census date, not merely in asylums for the special treatment of mental disorders, but at arge throughout the country. A Preliminary Report on the results of the Census was presented by tlie IJegistrar-General and his ;olleagues Dr. Farr and Mr. J. T. Hammick, to the Home Secretary on the 20th June, 1871; and low that the processes of revision and tabulation of the facts relating to the numerical distribution of ;he people have been completed, two large folio volumes have been published, of which it is the present vriter's object to give in these pages as comprehensive an analysis as the time and space at his disposal vill permit. n 2
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