Analysis unit

Persons, households, and dwellings Scotland only

UNITS IDENTIFIED: - Dwellings: yes - Vacant Units: No - Households: yes - Individuals: yes - Group quarters: yes

UNIT DESCRIPTIONS: - Dwellings: no - Households: A group of people who eat at the same table or in the same house, including lodgers and servants - Group quarters: Yes

Universe

All persons who slept in a dwelling in the country on the night of March 31, 1901 and persons who were working or travelling on the night March 31, 1901 but returned home on April 1, 1901

Kind of data

Population and Housing Census [hh/popcen]

Sampling procedure

MICRODATA SOURCE: Registrar General

SAMPLE SIZE (person records): 4438418.

SAMPLE DESIGN: Not applicable

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

A single household form collected information on individual characteristics

This dataset shows the creation of consistent registration district geography for Scotland from standardized registration districts and parishes in the Scottish censuses for the period from 1851 to 1901. More information is provided in the README document on the first worksheet in the Excel file.

This project aimed to extend knowledge of late nineteenth century Scottish, and hence British, demography, by producing four parallel longitudinal data sets by linking individuals in the decennial censuses of 1861-1901 with the births, deaths and marriages from civil registers for the lowland town of Kilmarnock, the Hebridean Island of Skye, and the rural parishes of Torthorwald and Rothiemay, places with contrasting economic and social structures and physical environments. The resulting data source is rich in information relating to the social, occupational, household, and demographic characteristics of individuals, who can also be situated within their physical environment. The relatively large scale of the data-sets allows greater accuracy and detail in the multivariate analysis of mortality, fertility, nuptiality and migration. Special permission was granted by the General Register Office, Edinburgh, for access to the civil registers of births, marriages and deaths, and these have been linked to the census entries for the same individuals, allowing the creation of full or partial life histories. Linkage has been carried out using a sets of related individuals approach in a relational data-base system using computer algorithms and hand-finishing (see Reid, Davies and Garrett (2006) 'Nineteenth century Scottish demography from linked censuses and civil registers: a sets of related individuals approach', History and Computing, 14(1+2), 2002 (publ. 2006), pp. 61-86).

The terms of our agreement with the General Register Office for Scotland do not allow us to deposit the births, marriages and deaths for archiving, which prevents deposit of the linked material. However we can deposit the census material annotated to include the years of birth, death and marriage of an individual (but no other details of these events). Two separate census deposits are being made. This is a version of the raw data, with no standardisation or enhancement apart from corrections or changes to ensure consistency, notes made by data entry personnel, and household and individual identifiers.

This dataset provides information about changes in population and boundaries in Scottish registration districts from 1851 to 1901. More information is provided in the README document on the first worksheet in the Excel file.

This dataset contains a variety of demographic measures (related to fertility, marriage, mortality and migration), plus a range of socio-economic indicators (related to households, age structure, and social class) for the 2000+ Registration Sub Districts (RSDs) in England and Wales for each census year between 1851 and 1911, and for the 600+ Registration Districts of Scotland 1851-1901. The measures have mainly been derived from the computerised individual level census enumerators' books (and household schedules for 1911) enhanced under the I-CeM project. I-CeM does not currently include data for England and Wales 1871, although the project has been able to access a version of the data for that year it does not contain information necessary to calculate many of the variables presented here. Scotland 1911 is also not available. Users should therefore beware that 1871 does not contain data for many of the variables. Additional data has been derived from the tables summarising numbers of births and deaths by year and areas, which were published by the Registrar General of England and Wales in his quarterly, annual and decennial reports of births, deaths and marriages. Data from the decennial reports was obtained from Woods (SN 3552) and we transcribed data from the quarterly and annual reports ourselves. Counts of births and deaths for Scottish Registration Districts were obtained from the Digitising Scotland project at the University of Edinburgh. The dataset builds on SN 8613 and SN 853547 which provide data for a more limited set of variables and for England and Wales only (the same dataset also has two UKDS SN numbers as it was re-routed by UKDS during the deposit process).

This project will present the first historic population geography of Great Britain during the late nineteenth century. This was a period of unprecedented demographic change, when both mortality and fertility started the dramatic secular declines of the first demographic transition. National trends are well established: mortality decline started in childhood and early adulthood, with infant mortality lagging behind, particularly in urban-industrial areas. The fall in fertility was led by the middle classes but quickly spread throughout society. Urban growth was fuelled by movement from the countryside to the city, but there was also considerable migration overseas, particularly from Scotland, although to some extent outmigration was offset by immigration. There was local and regional variation in these patterns, and a contrast between the demographic experiences of Scotland and of England and Wales. Marriage was later in Scotland but fertility within marriage higher, and the improvement in Scottish mortality was slower than that south of the border. However, while there has been research on local and regional patterns within each country, these have mainly been pursued separately, and it is therefore unclear whether there were real national differences or whether there were local demographic continuities across borders, and if so whether they followed economic, occupational, cultural or even linguistic lines. Understanding population processes involves a holistic appreciation of the interaction between the basic demographic components of fertility, mortality, nuptiality and migration, and how they come together, interacting with economic and cultural processes, to create a specific demographic system via the spread of people and ideas. This project is the first to consider a historical population geography of the whole of Great Britain across the first demographic transition, drawing together measures of nuptiality, fertility, mortality and migration for small geographic areas and unpacking how they interacted to produce the more readily available broad-brush national patterns for Scotland and for England and Wales.

We will build on our immensely successful project on the fertility of Victorian England and Wales, which used complete count census data for England and Wales to calculate more detailed fertility measures than ever previously possible for some 2000 small geographic areas and 8 social groups, allowing the investigation of intra-urban as well as urban-rural differences in fertility. The new measures allowed us to examine age patterns of fertility across the two countries for the first time. We were also able to calculate contextual variables from the census data which allowed us to undertake spatial analysis of the influences on fertility over time. As well as academic papers, our previous project presented summary data at a fine spatial resolution in an interactive online atlas, populationspast.org, a major new resource which is already being widely used as a teaching tool in both schools and universities.

In this new project we will calculate comparable measures of fertility and contextual variables using the full count census data for Scotland, 1851 to 1901 inclusive, to complement those for England and Wales. However, our new project will go considerably further and will integrate place-specific measures of mortality and migration, for both Scotland and for England and Wales. We will provide new age-specific data on fertility, mortality and migration for the whole of Great Britain using existing datasets, at a finer geographic level than has previously been possible, and will analyse these spatially and temporally to gain a panoramic understanding of the forces driving this crucial period of demographic and social change. We will expand populationspast.org to bring our new findings to a wide academic and non-academic audience and will provide the data for others to explore interactively.

This Special Licence access dataset contains names and addresses from the Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) dataset of the censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851 to 1911. These data are made available under Special Licence (SL) access conditions due to commercial sensitivity.

The anonymised main I-CeM database that complements these names and addresses is available under SN 7481. It comprises the Censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851-1911; data are available for England and Wales for 1851-1861 and 1881-1911 (1871 is not currently available for England and Wales) and for Scotland for 1851-1901 (1911 is not currently available for Scotland). The database contains over 180 million individual census records and was digitised and harmonised from the original census enumeration books. It details characteristics for all individuals resident in Great Britain at each of the included Censuses. The original digital data has been coded and standardised; the I-CeM database has consistent geography over time and standardised coding schemes for many census variables.

This dataset of names and addresses for individual census records is organised per country (England and Wales; Scotland) and per census year. Within each data file each census record contains first and last name, street address and an individual identification code (RecID) that allows linking with the corresponding anonymised I-CeM record. The data cannot be used for true linking of individual census records across census years for commercial genealogy purposes nor for any other commercial purposes. The SL arrangements are required to ensure that commercial sensitivity is protected. For information on making an application, see the Access section.

The data were updated in February 2020, with some files redeposited with longer field length limits. Users should note that some name and address fields are truncated due to the limits set by the LDS project that transcribed the original data. No more than 10,000 records out of some 210 million across the study should be affected. Examples include:

• England and Wales:
  • 1851 - truncated at the 24th character (maximum I-CeM field length 95 characters)
  • 1881 - truncated at the 16th character (maximum I-CeM field length 50 characters).
• Scotland: for 1851‐71, truncations affect less than 0.01% of all addresses and for 1851 around 1% at most
  • 1851 - truncated at the 70th character
  • 1861 - truncated at the 76th character
  • 1871 - truncated at the 82th character
  • 1881 - truncated at the 50th character.

Further information about I-CeM can be found on the I-CeM Integrated Microdata Project and I-CeM Guide webpages.

The Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) project has produced a standardised, integrated dataset of most of the censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851 to 1921: England and Wales for 1851-1861, 1881-1921 and Scotland for 1851-1901 and 1921, making available to academic researchers, detailed information at parish level about everyone resident in Great Britain collected at most of the decennial censuses between 1851-1921. Users should note that the 1871 England and Wales census data and 1911 Scottish census data are not available via I-CeM.

The original digital data has been coded and standardised. In addition, the original text and numerical strings have always been preserved in separate variables, so that researchers can go back to the original transcription. However, users should note that name and address details for individuals are not currently included in the database; for reasons of commercial sensitivity, these are held under Special Licence access conditions under SN 7856 for data relating to England, Wales and Scotland, 1851-1911 and SN 9281 for data relating to England and Wales, 1921.

This study (7481) relates to the available anonymised data for 1851-1911, i.e. all available years except 1921. Data for England and Wales 1921 are available under SN 9280. The data are available via an online system at https://icem.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

Latest edition information

For the second edition (June 2024), the 1851-1911 data have been redeposited with amended and enhanced data values.

Further information about I-CeM can be found on the "https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/icem/" target="_blank"> I-CeM Integrated Microdata Project webpages.

This dataset provides a dictionary to link registration district identifiers in Integrated Census Microdata - ICeM (Rdnum) to consistent registration districts (ConRD), 1851-1901. More information is provided in the README document on the first worksheet in the Excel file.

This Special Licence access dataset contains names and addresses from the Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) dataset of the censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851 to 1911. These data are made available under Special Licence (SL) access conditions due to commercial sensitivity.

The anonymised main I-CeM database that complements these names and addresses is available under SN 7481. It comprises the Censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851-1911; data are available for England and Wales for 1851-1861 and 1881-1911 (1871 is not currently available for England and Wales) and for Scotland for 1851-1901 (1911 is not currently available for Scotland). The database contains over 180 million individual census records and was digitised and harmonised from the original census enumeration books. It details characteristics for all individuals resident in Great Britain at each of the included Censuses. The original digital data has been coded and standardised; the I-CeM database has consistent geography over time and standardised coding schemes for many census variables.

This dataset of names and addresses for individual census records is organised per country (England and Wales; Scotland) and per census year. Within each data file each census record contains first and last name, street address and an individual identification code (RecID) that allows linking with the corresponding anonymised I-CeM record. The data cannot be used for true linking of individual census records across census years for commercial genealogy purposes nor for any other commercial purposes. The SL arrangements are required to ensure that commercial sensitivity is protected. For information on making an application, see the Access section.

The data were updated in February 2020, with some files redeposited with longer field length limits. Users should note that some name and address fields are truncated due to the limits set by the LDS project that transcribed the original data. No more than 10,000 records out of some 210 million across the study should be affected. Examples include:

• England and Wales:
  • 1851 - truncated at the 24th character (maximum I-CeM field length 95 characters)
  • 1881 - truncated at the 16th character (maximum I-CeM field length 50 characters).
• Scotland: for 1851‐71, truncations affect less than 0.01% of all addresses and for 1851 around 1% at most
  • 1851 - truncated at the 70th character
  • 1861 - truncated at the 76th character
  • 1871 - truncated at the 82th character
  • 1881 - truncated at the 50th character.

Further information about I-CeM can be found on the I-CeM Integrated Microdata Project and I-CeM Guide webpages.

BBCE data for entrepreneurs by sectors for Burghs in Scotland 1851-1901. Detailed definitions and method given in WP 6. The downloads include the total number of the economically active population from the BBCE broken down by sector, sex, for employers, own-account proprietors, and workers. All data are weighted for census non-response bias in 1891-1901.

The Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM), England and Wales, 1921 study contains the standardised England and Wales data for 1921.

The Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) project has produced a standardised, integrated dataset of most of the censuses of Great Britain for the period 1851 to 1911: England and Wales for 1851-1861, 1881-1921 and Scotland for 1851-1901, and 1921 making available to academic researchers, detailed information at parish level about everyone resident in Great Britain collected at most of the decennial censuses between 1851-1921.

The name and address details for individuals are not currently included in the database; for reasons of commercial sensitivity, these are held under Special Licence access conditions under SN 9281 Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) Names and Addresses, England and Wales, 1921: Special Licence Access. See the catalogue record for 9281 for instructions on how to apply for those data.

These data are available via an online system at https://icem.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

Further information about I-CeM can be found on the "https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/icem/" target="_blank"> I-CeM Integrated Microdata Project webpages.

BBCE data for entrepreneurs by county. The downloads include the total population (from census publications), and the total number of the economically active population from the BBCE broken down by sex, for employers, own-account proprietors, and workers. All data are weighted for census non-response bias in 1891-1901.

BBCE data for entrepreneurs by sector for counties. The downloads include the total number of the economically active population from the BBCE broken down by sector, sex, for employers, own-account proprietors, and workers. All data are weighted for census non-response bias in 1891-1901.

The British Business Census of Entrepreneurs, 1851-1911 (BBCE) is a quality-controlled, consistent, and integrated database that is as complete as feasible for all British business proprietors in the period 1851-1911, and aligned to modern definitions used up to the 2011 census. It covers England and Wales for 1851-1911, and Scotland for 1851-1901. It includes as fully as possible all: Employers (those who employed others); Sole proprietor own account self-employed (those who employed no-one else); and Directors of corporations (Limited Companies). BBCE mainly derives from the Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) Project (see SN 7856), to which BBCE is linked via individual RecID; but BBCE also infills missing or truncated data in I-CeM using census transcripts from S&N and coding from CEBs, and also provides entrepreneur data for 1871. BBCE makes available employment status codes for all years 1851-1911, occupational coding to main occupation and portfolios, coding of partnerships and directors, and extracts workforce size where given by employers over 1851-81, and for farmers the acreage occupied. There is data linkage and coding of individuals identifiable in the census who were directors of corporations, together with information on their companies.

Further information may be found on the https://www.bbce.uk/">BBCE project website.

Publications, working papers and presentations are also regularly updated at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/driversofentrepreneurship/">Drivers of entrepreneurship and small business project website.

The original data producers and copyright holders of I-CeM are Professors K. Schurer and E.J. Higgs, and the original data producer and copyright holder for S&N is Nigel Bayley.