Victorian West Sussex

Background for teachers

Introduction

Over 2000 years ago the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and rulers of other countries counted the people living under their rule, usually to help them collect taxes, or know how many men were available for the army. The first time there was any kind of census in Britain was the Domesday Book in 1086.

In the late 18th century, the British government was concerned about the rapid increase of the population, and possible problems in supplying enough food for everybody. It decided to hold a census to gather information about the number of people living in the country and where they lived, so a census was held in 1801. There has been a census every 10 years since then, except in 1941 during the Second World War.

In 1841, for the first time, the names and addresses of people were recorded. From 1851 more detailed information about each person living in a household was gathered, including their age, their work, and where they were born. Having this sort of information meant the government could be more detailed in its economic planning, as well as knowing how many men were available to fight in case of war, or in more recent times to plan where and how many houses need to be built.

From 1851, every household in the country was given a form to be filled in on Census day. On the next day, the 'enumerator' (the person in charge of collecting information for each district) went from house to house to collect the forms and check if they were filled in properly; if the householder could not read or write, the enumerator would fill it in for them. The information on the forms was then copied into a book and sent to the census office in London, where clerks would list information on ages, jobs, birthplaces, and so on, which could then be put into tables of statistics.

The method has hardly changed. Forms are distributed to every household, and up to 1991 they were collected by the enumerators. In 2001 special envelopes were provided with the forms and for the first time people could send in their census returns by post.

1851 to 1901

Between 1851 and 1901, the information gathered became more detailed, as can be seen from the following table and census form examples.

1851	1901
	Administrative County
Parish or township	Civil Parish
Ecclesiastical district	Ecclesiastical Parish
City or Borough	County Borough, Municipal Borough, or Urban District
	Ward of Municipal Borough or Urban District
	Rural District
	Parliamentary Borough or Division
Town	Town or Village or Hamlet
Village
No. of householder's Schedule	No. of Schedule
Name of street, place or road, and name or number of house	Road, street, and so on, and no. or name of house
	Houses: 1) inhabited 2) in occupation 3) not in occupation 4) building 5) number of rooms occupied.
Name and surname of each person who abode in the house on the night of the 30 March 1851	Name and surname of each person
Relation to head of family	Relation to head of family
Condition* married or single	Condition as to marriage
Age last birthday	Age last birthday
Male or female	Male or female
Rank, profession or occupation	Profession or occupation
	Employer, worker or own account
	If working at home
Where born	Where born
Whether blind, or deaf-and-dumb	1) deaf-and-dumb 2) blind 3) lunatic 4) imbecile, feeble-minded

1851 Headings

1901 Headings

1901 Headings transcript

1901 Headings transcript

Sources for further research

Copies of census returns for West Sussex parishes 1841-1901 are available on microform at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO) in Chichester, and Worthing Library. Returns for 1841-1901 covering each library catchment area are available at Broadwater, Crawley, East Grinstead, Horsham, Littlehampton, Burgess Hill and Shoreham Libraries.

There are indexes by surname of the inhabitants for some individual parishes or registration districts. For towns, there are also some indexes arranged by street and house name. Copies are available at WSRO, and some at Worthing Library.

All censuses from 1851 to 1901 are available through the internet via the National Archives website. Public access PCs are available at all West Sussex public libraries and the WSRO.