An Act for ascertaining the Number of the Inhabitants of the Colony of New South Wales in the Year One thousand eight hundred and forty-one, 1840 (4 Victoria Act No. 26) required every householder, employer of servants and proprietor and occupier of land to complete the census schedule on the second day ('or on the days immediately subsequent thereto') of March 1841.

The 1841 Census was more complete than its predecessors, as the population was recorded in police districts, counties and towns. There was a broader tabulation of results which included age groups, conjugal condition (married or unmarried), religious denomination and civil condition. Civil condition provided statistical information on the number of bond (convict) or free males and females in a household, whether they were born in the colony, arrived free, held a ticket of leave, and whether they were in government employment or private assignment.

The Census was taken by specially appointed collectors generally responsible to a Commissioner or a Bench of Magistrates, the collector completed printed forms, known as Form ‘A’ for each household in the allotted territory. After the Census magistrates were instructed to check the returns and send abstracts to the Colonial Secretary, designated Form ‘C’. The returns were then gathered together, statistics extracted and the final returns made.

This series comprises bound volumes of Form C . (NRS 1281).

The Form C records: number of return, name of establishment (usually head of household), number of each age group for males, and then for females (the age divisions are under two, two and under seven, seven and under 14, 14 and under 21, 21 and under 45, 45 and under 60, 60 and upwards); married or single; civil condition: free (born in colony, arrived free, other free persons), bond (ticket of leave, in government employment, in private assignment); then religion divided into Church of England, Church of Scotland, Wesleyan Methodists, other Protestant dissenters, Roman Catholics, Jews, Mohammedans and Pagans; occupation divided into land proprietors, merchants, bankers, and professional men; shopkeepers and other retail dealers; mechanics and artificers; shepherds and others in the care of sheep; gardeners, stockmen and persons employed in agriculture; domestic servants; all other persons not included in the foregoing classes; totals for males, for females, and for both; houses - further divided into stone or brick, wood, total; finished or unfinished; inhabited or uninhabited. The columns are totalled at the bottom of each sheet.

As well as these Abstracts of returns, there are also a number of "condensed" abstracts of returns, filled in on Form C. These enumerate the running numbers covered by each sheet of abstracts eg. one-20, 21-40 and give sums for each group as well as grand total.

Form C abstracts are arranged by district following the order in the Returns of the Colony for 1841. 'Condensed' Abstracts are filed with the district abstracts to which they pertain.

Berrima-Port Phillip (X946-49)
Queanbeyan-Yass (X950-51)

References
1) State Records New South Wales Website, "Concise Guide to the State Archives (Ca - Commissioners): Colonial Secretary, later Chief Secretary, later Services; s. Population and Statistics, a. Musters and Census Records, ii. Census,23. 1841 Census: Abstracts of returns, CGS 1282."
2) State Records New South Wales Website, "Introduction to the 1841 Census: Index to the 1841 Census, Background".
3) State Records New South Wales Website, "Short Guide 12 - Muster and Census Records, 1788 - 1901".

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

These data were originally collected by the Censuses of Population for England and Wales, and for Scotland. They were computerised by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and its collaborators.

The census has gathered data on "occupations", meaning individuals' roles in the workplace, since the first household enumeration in 1841, and this collection includes most of the published results. However, how the results were classified varied greatly: for 1841, there is simply an alphabetical list of individual occupations, in 1851 the most basic classification was into workers in animal, vegetable and minerals, and so on. Further, the more detailed the occupational classification used, space considerations tended to require a less detailed geography; or, sometimes, the use of an abridged classification for small towns and rural areas; or even different tables and classifications for men and for women. There are consequently multiple datasets for some years.

Latest edition information

For the second edition (October 2022), the data and documentation have been revised.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

The Great Britain Historical GIS Project has also produced digitised boundary data, which can be obtained from the UK Data Service Census Support service. Further information is available at census.ukdataservice.ac.uk

Main Topics:

The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. Where practical the referencing of spatial units has been integrated, data for different dates have been assembled into single tables.

The Great Britain Historical Database currently contains :

• Statistics from the 1861 Census and the Registrar General's reports, 1851-1861
  
• Employment statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Demographic statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Mortality statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1861-1920
  
• Marriage statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1841-1870
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), 1851-1918
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ), 1863-1912
  
• Official poor law statistics, 1859-1915 and 1919-1939
  
• Wage statistics, 1845-1906
  
• Hours of work statistics, 1900-1913
  
• Small debt statistics from county courts, 1847-1913 and 1938
  

There are five tables in this part of the Great Britain Historical Database :

Rd_pop holds population totals for all registration districts in England and Wales for each census from 1841 to 1911.

Pop_chan holds details of population changes between censuses for all registration districts in England and Wales for each inter-censal period from 1851-1861 to 1901-1911.

Age_sex holds the number of males and females in 5 year age groups for all registration districts in England and Wales for each census from 1851 to 1911, and for all local government districts for each census from 1921 to 1931.

Age_1901 holds a full transcript of the number of males and females in 5 year age groups for all registration districts in England and Wales for the 1901 census with greater detail for ages 13 to 20.

Rd_gaz converts the names of registration districts which appear in the database into the forms used in the GIS.

Rd_gis holds the names and counties of registration districts as they appear in the GIS, and is used for checking names and constructing rd_gaz.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Illawarra (4/1243A-C). 3 vols.

These records comprise Form A - Householders Returns and Form B - Collectors' Affidavits.
Form A records county, parish, town or district; name of householder, employer of servants, or person in charge; place of residence and street if in a town. Then follows a series of questions relating to the proprietor of the house, the substance the house was built of, the people residing in the house and how many of them were free.
On the other side of the form is a table headed "Numerical return showing the age, sex, religion, occupation, condition and trade and calling, of persons in the said House or Establishment".

Form B accompanies Form A. It is an affidavit form signed by the collector that the numbers taken are a true statement of the number and quality of the persons residing in the district. They showing running numbers covered by the returns with which they are filed. They are signed by the collector, the place and date are given and the signature of the Justice of the Peace or Police Magistrate for the area.

Port Phillip (4/1244A-C; microfilm copy SR Reels 1419 and 2509). 3 vols.

This form records on a single sheet the information noted on Forms A and B described above.

Note:
This description is extracted from Concise Guide to the State Archives of New South Wales, 3rd Edition 2000.

This dataset provides a list of surnames that are reliably Irish and that can be used for identifying textual references to Irish individuals in the London area and surrounding countryside within striking distance of the capital. This classification of the Irish necessarily includes the Irish-born and their descendants. The dataset has been validated for use on records up to the middle of the nineteenth century, and should only be used in cases in which a few mis-classifications of individuals would not undermine the results of the work, such as large-scale analyses. These data were created through an analysis of the 1841 Census of England and Wales, and validated against the Middlesex Criminal Registers (National Archives HO 26) and the Vagrant Lives Dataset (Crymble, Adam et al. (2014). Vagrant Lives: 14,789 Vagrants Processed by Middlesex County, 1777-1786. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.13103). The sample was derived from the records of the Hundred of Ossulstone, which included much of rural and urban Middlesex, excluding the City of London and Westminster. The analysis was based upon a study of 278,949 adult males. Full details of the methodology for how this dataset was created can be found in the following article, and anyone intending to use this dataset for scholarly research is strongly encouraged to read it so that they understand the strengths and limits of this resource:

Adam Crymble, 'A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth Century London', _Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History_, vol. 48, no. 3 (2015): 141-152.

The data here provided includes all 283 names listed in Appendix I of the above paper, but also an additional 209 spelling variations of those root surnames, for a total of 492 names.

This data collection uses Census returns to construct a consistent time series of population for urban centres in England and Wales 1801-1911. This allows the urban development and structure of England and Wales to be analysed, and provides a resource to other researchers seeking to make ready comparisons of other information with urban development across the nineteenth century. It has been derived from the work of three previous researchers: (1) Chris Law (1967) originally prepared it; (2) Brian Robson (1973) developed the data further and transcribed Law’s data and preserved it, and also added information on some smaller settlements for years before they became ‘urban’ under Law’s criteria; (3) Jack Langton (2000) undertook a different study for the 17th century to 1841 using the same basic methods and definitions as Law-Robson for 1801 and 1841 and corrected various errors and omissions in the Law-Robson material; he also disaggregated the Law-Robson data for the period to 1841 to reflect the fact that many places had not coalesced into large towns by this date. The database here combines these three sources. It was prepared by Bob Bennett (2011) for a study of local economies and chamber of commerce business representation.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This machine-readable version of John Williams' Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics is the result of a collaboration between the Statistical Directorate of the National Assembly for Wales, the History Data Service and the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at Queen's University Belfast.
John Williams' Digest of Welsh Historical Statistics is intended to provide a service for those working on the history of modern Wales. It arises from a belief that the quantitative element is a necessary and important part of the historical record; from an awareness that it was an aspect that was particularly inaccessible for scholars of Welsh history; and from a conviction that some encouragement in the use of quantitative material was necessary. It is modelled on the two volumes dedicated to British historical statistics: Mitchell, B.R. and Deane, P. (1962) Abstract of British historical statistics and Mitchell, B.R. and Jones, H.G. (1971) Second abstract of British historical statistics.
Main Topics:
The main tables are:


Total population and intercensal change by sex by county, 1801-1971
Number of females per 1000 males by county, 1801-1971
Age and marital condition by sex, 1841-1971
Area/acreage by county, 1841-1971
Population of Registration Counties as constituted at the time of each Census, 1841-1911
Comparative area and population of Registration, Ancient and Administrative Counties, 1891
Parish Register returns of baptisms, burials and marriages, 1700-1840
Estimated mid-year population by sex, 1841-1974
Estimated mid-year population totals by county, 1903-1974
Number of deaths by sex, crude death-rates and infant mortality, 1838-1974
Number of births and birth-rates, 1839-1974
Number of marriages and rate per 1000 population, 1839-1974
Population of towns, 1801-1971
Net migration and natural increase, number and per cent for each, inter-censal period, by county, 1841-1971
Number born in Wales and living in United States, 1850-1970
Number of Welsh speakers by sex, by county and county borough, 1891-1971
Welsh speakers as a percentage of total population over three years of age, by county and county borough, 1891-1971
Welsh-speaking population by age, 1901-1971

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Decennial life tables for males and for females have been constructed based on the mortality experience of the population of England and Wales during the three years surrounding each census since 1841.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

The Great Britain Historical GIS Project has also produced digitised boundary data, which can be obtained from the UK Data Service Census Support service. Further information is available at census.ukdataservice.ac.uk

Main Topics:

The Great Britain Historical Database is a large database of British nineteenth and twentieth-century statistics. Where practical the referencing of spatial units has been integrated, data for different dates have been assembled into single tables.

The Great Britain Historical Database currently contains :

• Statistics from the 1861 Census and the Registrar General's reports, 1851-1861
  
• Employment statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Demographic statistics from the census, 1841-1931
  
• Mortality statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1861-1920
  
• Marriage statistics from the Registrar General's reports, 1841-1870
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), 1851-1918
  
• Trade union statistics for the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ), 1863-1912
  
• Official poor law statistics, 1859-1915 and 1919-1939
  
• Wage statistics, 1845-1906
  
• Hours of work statistics, 1900-1913
  
• Small debt statistics from county courts, 1847-1913 and 1938
  

There are eight tables in this part of the Great Britain Historical Database :

Plaw_c holds county-level data for England and Wales on numbers of paupers taken from the Annual Reports of the Poor Law Board and later the Local Government Board for 1st January and 1st July from January 1859 to January 1915, plus January 1919.

Plaw_c_f holds a full transcript of county-level pauperage statistics for England and Wales taken from the Annual Reports of the Poor Law Board and later the Local Government Board for 1st January and 1st July 1860, 1863, 1866, 1868 and 1879.

Plaw_u holds data taken from the Returns to Parliament made by the Poor Law Board, and later the Local Government Board listing number of paupers in each poor law union on the 1st January and 1st July. Coverage is as follows: all poor law unions in Lancashire for 1st January and 1st July from 1860 to 1871; all poor law unions in England and Wales for 1st January only from 1900 to 1912; all unions in London, Lancashire, Durham and selected major urban unions for 1st January and 1st July in 1875, 1879 and 1880.

Plaw_u_f contains a full transcript of poor law union-level pauperage statistics for selected unions taken from the Returns to Parliament. Coverage is as follows: all poor law unions in Lancashire for 1st January and 1st July from 1860 to 1871; all unions in Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire for 1st January and 1st July in 1860, 1863, 1866, 1868 and 1869.

Plaw_iw holds inter-war poor law statistics taken from the Returns to Parliament for 1st January only for all poor law unions in England and Wales from 1922 to 1930, and for all counties and county-boroughs in England and Wales from 1931 to 1939.

Plaw_20 holds poor law statistics for England and Wales for 1920 and 1921 for selected poor law union for 1st January only.

Plu_gaz converts names of poor law unions as they appear in plaw_u, plaw_u_f, plaw_iw and plaw_20 into the form used in the GIS.

Plu_gis holds names and counties of poor law unions as they appear in the GIS; used for checking names and constructing plu_gaz.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

The UK censuses took place on 29th April 2001. They were run by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA), General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for both England and Wales. The UK comprises the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Statistics from the UK censuses help paint a picture of the nation and how we live. They provide a detailed snapshot of the population and its characteristics, and underpin funding allocation to provide public services.

Census Support provides digitised boundary datasets of the UK, available in many Geographic Information System (GIS) formats. Most of these data are available as Open data under OGL v3 license. Postcode directories are also available although some of these are restricted to members of the academic community under 'Special Conditions'.

There are many digitised boundaries available. The main group of boundaries correspond to the various levels of 2011, 2001, 1991, 1981 and 1971 census geography which are designed to be used for spatial visualisation and analysis of census statistics. Also available are historic boundaries created by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project, held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33288 Great Britain Historical Database, 1841-1939.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

Main Topics:

Parish level statistics for England, Wales and Scotland taken from the 1801, 1811, 1851, 1891, 1911, 1931 and 1951 censuses.

Parish level statistics for England and Wales taken from the 1831 and 1871 censuses.

Parish level statistics for England taken from the 1821 and 1841 censuses.

Parish level statistics for Scotland taken from the 1881 census.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.