Many people wonder what all the fuss was about; the 1911 british census was being released for public viewing and the country appeared to be buzzing about it; So, what is a census? Who does it benefit? Why the excitement from it being publicly available?
A census is a count of the inhabitants of a country. Details are recorded for every member of a country’s population, including their age, sex and occupation. In the UK a census is usually taken every 10 years, though since 1861 the census for Scotland has been taken separately to that for England and Wales.
The census is an essential tool in the administration and economic forecasting of a country. The details collected are used to track such factors as population growth and movement (which have implications for matters such as food supply and the armed forces) so that governments can plan and correctly allocate resources.
In 1066 the doomsday book was written by the “civil servants” of the day. The doomsday book is possibly the first ever attempt at recording data relating to the financial health of a state, and by default was a crude attempt at making a british census, although its motives were entirely financial and the outcome was a more structured tax system, the doomsday book recorded information on almost all individuals of the state.
However, the census taken in 1801 is regarded as the first national british census. This census was no more than a basic headcount and didn’t include individual names. With each subsequent census the information collection has become more sophisticated, with more information noted and a more detailed breakdown of that information being given, allowing it to be interpreted in more specific ways.
This is invaluable to individuals wishing to trace their ancestry and more importantly for the government, has allowed their consultants to be focused in their approach to fiscal and tax strategy planning.
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The british census of 1911 was the last census to have been made readily available to members of the british public. Genealogy sites have cropped up all over the internet providing new services to their members on how best to trace their ancestors, and the 1911 british census allowed many family historians to “gap fill” areas of their ancestry which had previously remained a mystery to them.
The excitement at the british census becoming so readily available is derived from that need and drive for the family historian to trace ancestors accurately from the not so distant past. In fact whilst only 99 years old, the release of this document has impacted on my own life and relatives previously known and quite amazingly living less than 50 miles from my door have been in touch since via information gained from the census.
Therefore the excitement is hardly surprising. However, there are as always the sceptics amongst us. After all a census is only as good as the information it records and whilst taking part is a legal obligation, there are some amongst us who feel their rite to anonymity has been withdrawn by the publishing of such data.
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