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Some Account of the Census, from 1801 to 1881

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2016

Arthur Francis Burridge
Arthur Francis Burridge
Affiliation:
Equity and Law Life Assurance Society
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Extract

Prior to the commencement of the present century, no direct method had been adopted to ascertain the number of the population in England. Various estimates, founded upon Domesday Books, Subsidy Rolls, and payments of Hearth and Poll taxes furnish, with more or less exactness, the numbers at previous periods. Three such calculations relating to the population towards the close of the 17th century are mentioned by Macaulay as being entitled to peculiar attention. “Of these computations one was made in the year 1696 by Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, a political arithmetician of great acuteness and judgment. The basis of his calculations was the number of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the last collection of hearth money. The conclusion at which he arrived was that the population of England was nearly five millions and a half. About the same time, King William the Third was desirous to ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into which the community was divided. According to the reports laid before him from all the dioceses of the realm, the number of his English subjects must have been about 5,200,000. Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent still, subjected the parochial registers to all the tests which the modern improvements in statistical science enabled him to apply. His opinion was, that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the population of England was a little under 5,200,000 souls. … We may, therefore, with confidence pronounce that, when James the Second reigned, England contained between five million and five million five hundred thousand inhabitants.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , January 1885 , pp. 83 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1886

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References

page 84 note * History of England, vol. i, p. 282, 7th edition, 1850 Google Scholar.

page 84 note † British Almanac and Companion, 1835, p. 72.

page 85 note * Report of Commissioners of Census of the United Kingdom, 1851.

page 86 note * The Registration Act for Ireland came into operation on 1 January 1864.

page 86 note † The materials for the foregoing account of the earlier enumerations were derived, for the most part, from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition, article— “Census.”

page 86 note ‡ Registrar-General's Report—Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 75 Google Scholar.

page 86 note § Ibid, p. 9.

page 88 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1871, vol. iv, p. xxxvii Google Scholar.

page 89 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 75 Google Scholar.

page 89 note † Registrar-General's Report, Census 1871, vol. iv, p. 162 Google Scholar.

page 92 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol, iv, p. 106 Google Scholar.

page 98 note * Registar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 9 Google Scholar.

page 99 note * Many of the districts which are at present urban, would not have been sufficiently populous to rank as urban in 1871, and still less in 1861. The urban population for 1861 and 1871, as given in the table, is therefore overstated.—Note by Registrar-General.

page 101 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 13 Google Scholar.

page 101 note † Victorian Year-Rook, 1883–4, p. 70.

page 101 note ‡ Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 51 Google Scholar.

page 102 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 22 Google Scholar.

page 104 note * Stephens's Commentaries, 9th edition, 1883, p. 239.

page 108 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 59 Google Scholar.

page 109 note * Registrar-General's Report, Census 1881, vol. iv, p. 60 Google Scholar.

page 110 note * Preface to the Occupations Abstract, Census Report, 1841 (British Almanac and Companion, 1845, p. 38).