Population. Comparative account of the population of Great Britain in the years 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831; with the annual value of real property in the year 1815: also a statement of progress in the inquiry regarding the occupations of families and persons, and the duration of life. As required by the Population act of 1830 / [Ordered by the House of Commons, to be printed, 19 October 1831.

  • Great Britain. Census Office.
Date:
[1831]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Population. Comparative account of the population of Great Britain in the years 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831; with the annual value of real property in the year 1815: also a statement of progress in the inquiry regarding the occupations of families and persons, and the duration of life. As required by the Population act of 1830 / [Ordered by the House of Commons, to be printed, 19 October 1831. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The number of the Manufacturing Class is asked by the Eighth Question, and the species of Manufacture in every place is asked by the Thirteenth Question. The Class formed by those employed in Retail Trade and Handicraft (as described in the Ninth Question) undergoes sub-division in detail, an explanation and example of which will be given in a subsequent part of this Statement. Persons of independent income, Capitalists, Professional men, and, generally speaking, those who do not labour with their hands, are included in the Tenth Question; all Labourers, other than agricultural, are included in the Eleventh Question; and the Twelfth Question embraces all those not described in any of the preceding Questions [7—12] which apply to Males of Twenty years of age. To this there is one exception, as to domestic Male Servants, who are distinguished as of Twenty years old, and under that age; Female Servants, of whatever age, have been dis¬ tinctly enumerated. The Question of the Age of persons, which succeeded beyond expectation in 1821, has not been iepeated in 1831, not only as imposing too much labour in combination with the above described enquiries, but as unnecessary and inconclusive at an interval of no more than Ten Years. Moreover the Ages of the Living are much connected with the Ages of persons at the time of their death; and considering the vast property dependent on the probable duration of life, this kind of knowledge is highly important, and is attainable to a great extent in consequence of the Parish-Register Act of 1812, which during Eighteen complete Years, has now produced an account of the ages of Four Millions of the deceased. To extract from the entries in Parish Registers such an account, was an extensive labour committed to the charge of the Clergy, and in most places performed by themselves personally. To arrange these accounts into totals for each Year and for every age since 1812, will require time and assiduous labour; but encouraged in its progress by the satisfaction of working on materials more ample than any hitherto subj ected to investigation. Many other results are obtainable from the Parish Registers, which, in the aggregate form a vast national record. The earliest of them date from the establishment of the Church of England, Injunctions to that effect having been issued by Cromwell (Henry’s Vice-gerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction) in 1538; these were repeated in the beginning of the Reign of Elizabeth, who also appointed a protestation to be made by the Clergy, in which, among other things, they promised to keep Parish Register Books in the proper manner. r r The Canons of the Church of England now in force, date their authority from the begin¬ ning of the Reign of James I. (a. d. 1603.) One of these prescribes minutely in what manner entries are to be made in the Parish Register; herein reciting the Injunction of 1538, and further ordering an attested Copy of the Register of each successive year to be delivered in, and preserved in the Bishop’s Registry. This Canon contains also a retrospective clause, appointing that the antient Registers as ar as they could be procured, (but especially from the commencement of the Reign of Elizabeth) should be copied into a Parchment Book, to be provided by every Parish. This wise regulation appears to have been carried into full effect, so that the early Parish egister Books now extant are usually transcripts, commencing with that Queen’s Reio-n a few of them earlier, even as far back as the date of the original injunction. By the Parish-Register Act of 1812 an attempt was made to ascertain the dates of Registers extant in every Parish; but the operation of that Act was incompetent to the attainment of this object; wherefore occasion is now taken to renew the attempt by a question, to which answer is optional on the part of the Clergy; but which, through their readiness to furnish requisite information of all the Register Books in their custody promises a satisfactory result. Thus much it has been necessary to say, introductory to the subsequent statements of progress m the several departments of enquiry under the Population Act.