Censuses in The United Kingdom - History

History

In the 7th century, Dál Riata (parts of what is now Scotland and Northern Ireland) was the first territory in what is now the UK to conduct a census, with what was called the "Tradition of the Men of Alba" (Senchus fer n-Alban). England took its first Census when the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 for tax purposes.

Distinct from earlier censuses with lesser inclusion (e.g. for religious purposes), national decennial censuses of the general population of the UK started in 1801, championed by John Rickman. The censuses were initially conducted partly to ascertain the number of men able to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, and partly over population concerns stemming from the 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population by Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus. Rickman's twelve reasons - set out in 1798 and repeated in Parliamentary debates - for conducting a census of Great Britain included the following justifications:

• 'the intimate knowledge of any country must form the rational basis of legislation and diplomacy'
• 'an industrious population is the basic power and resource of any nation, and therefore its size needs to be known'
• 'the number of men who were required for conscription to the militia in different areas should reflect the area's population'
• 'there were defence reasons for wanting to know the number of seamen'
• 'the need to plan the production of corn and thus to know the number of people who had to be fed'
• 'a census would indicate the Government's intention to promote the public good' and
• 'the life insurance industry would be stimulated by the results.'

Regular national censuses have taken place every ten years since 1801, most recently in 2011 (see United Kingdom Census 2011); other partial censuses have been made on some of the intervening fifth anniversaries. The first four censuses (1801–1831) were mainly statistical. That is, mainly headcounts that contained virtually no personal information. A small number of older records exist in local record offices as by-products of the notes made by enumerators in the production of those earlier censuses, these might list all persons or just the heads of households. The 1841 Census was the first to intentionally record names of all individuals in a household or institution.

In 1920 the Census Act 1920 was passed, which has provided the legal framework for conducting all censuses in Great Britain (Scotland, England, and Wales) since. The primary legislation for Northern Ireland was introduced in 1969. Before the legislation, it was necessary to have a separate act of parliament for each census. Britain was also responsible for initiating and co-ordinating censuses in many of its colonies.

Because of the Second World War, there was no census in 1941. However, following the passage into law (on 5 September 1939) of the National Registration Act 1939 a population count was carried out on 29 September 1939. The resulting National Register was later used to develop the NHS Central Register.

Censuses were taken on 26 April 1931 in Great Britain but the returns for England and Wales were destroyed by fire (in an accident and not after bombing) during the Second World War.

On 24 April 1966, the UK trialled an alternative method of enumeration - long form/short form. Every household was given a short form to complete, while a sample of the population was given a long form to collect more detail. The short form was used for the population count and to collect basic information such as usual address, sex, age and relationships to other household members. This was the first and only time that a five-yearly census was carried out in the UK.