1851 United Kingdom census

The 1851 census was the first to record the full details of birth location for individuals. Where 1841 had only recorded if an individual was born in a county, the 1851 census states the county and parish or town of birth as well. The purpose behind asking for this information was to answer one of the critical questions of the time which was the rate and intensity of migration from rural to urban areas. The results confirmed there had been a significant shift from the countryside to the towns. The 1851 census was the first to record each person's marital status and relationship to the head of the household, as well as details of disability being recorded—with a field for recording the information that an individual was "blind, deaf or imbecile". Full documentation for the 1851 population census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the North Atlantic Population Project. Census of religion The Government also conducted a census in England and Wales of churches and chapels, endowments, sittings, attendance at religious services on Sunday 30 March 1851 and average numbers during the preceding twelve months. Reports were collected from local ministers. The attendance count was 10,896,066 (60.8%) out of a population of 17,927,609. There were 5,292,551 (48.6% of total attendants) attending Church of England services, 4,536,264 (41.6%) attending other Protestant churches, and 383,630 (3.5%) attending Catholic services. This was a unique experiment, not repeated at any later census. The religious census returns are now held in The National Archives as class HO 129. ==Government analysis==

Since the 1841 Census the population of Ireland had dropped by 1.7 million due to mass starvation caused by the Great Famine, as well as emigration abroad. The additional information on ages and occupations permitted considerable contemporary analysis of the census data for England and Wales. Not only were 332 different occupations analysed by age group, but they were also correlated with death records from civil registration, allowing statisticians, led by William Farr, "to compare the living in each well defined occupation with the number dying registered at the corresponding ages; and thus to determine the influence of employment on health and life". Examples from his conclusions include: ==Genealogical value==

The 1851 census is seen as one of the key sources for British genealogical research of the nineteenth century. The information about the relationship of individuals to the head of household enables relationships between people to be established accurately. Furthermore, the inclusion of exact ages and details of each person's place of birth, provides the researcher with a pointer to the location of birth or baptism records. In many cases, this allows the researcher to pin-down the parish of birth with relative ease: in other cases, the situation is not so simple. An example of the problems encountered is that the census may accurately record a person's place of birth, although their baptism (which may be the only record relating to their birth) may be in a different place. Conversely, a person may have been born and baptised in one place, but brought up in a different place, which is the one they remember as their place of origin and duly record it as such in the census. A further problem is that the information about a household was normally provided to the census enumerator by the head of household—and heads of household varied in the conscientiousness with which they elicited information from each person in the household. In cases where a person was born outside the country, only the country of origin is given (not the location within the country). Hence, for example, there are many people in the English census whose place of birth is given simply as "Scotland". ==Data availability and publication==

The 1851 schedules have been digitized and are available at subscription websites. The schedules are of high importance to genealogists since 1851 was the first year in which a place of birth or parish was recorded. Microdata from the 1851 population census are freely available through the North Atlantic Population Project. Religious census The religious census returns (The National Archives, HO 129) are available to download free of charge as part of the Digital Microfilm project. The returns for a number of counties have been published by county record societies and similar bodies. • • • • • • (2 vols.) • • • • • • • • • • • • {{cite book |editor-last=Wolffe |editor1-first=John |title=Yorkshire Returns of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship |location=York |publisher=Borthwick Institute of Historical Research |date=2000–2005 == Notes ==