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 Volume now laid before Parliament for present use, includes nothing more of the Returns under the Population Act of 1830 than the Enumeration of persons; which Returns are not arranged, as heretofore, according to the Hundreds and similar Divisions of the several Counties ; instead of which, the Parishes are placed alphabetically in each County, as the order most convenient for ready reference when the single fact of Population is in question. In searching for any place alphabetically, the enquirer should recollect that the mode of spelling the names of places is somewhat arbitrary and irregular, and pursue his search accordingly, in case of failure in his first attempt. Places of double name create a further difficulty, and an uncertainty whether the distinctive epithet or the substantive name appears in the Alphabet order, may create a delay not tedious, but often unavoidable. For all purposes, other than ready reference to individual places, the accustomed arrange¬ ment of Parishes according to Hundreds and similar divisions, is more instructive, is indeed indispensable; and two Acts of Parliament [9 Geo. IV. c. 43, and 10 Geo. IV. c. 46.] have recently enabled Justices of the Peace to rectify inconvenient limits of Jurisdiction, but not to embrace Extra-parochial places within their jurisdiction; and the Inhabitants of these privileged spots, in favour of whom the Poor are relieved, Roads and Bridges are maintained, public Justice and police are kept in action, by the personal services and at the expense of others,—daily increase in number, in proportion as those public duties become progressively more onerous, and this effectual manner of evading them becomes more generally known. In most of the Southern Counties, where the early settlement and long tenure of the Saxons multiplied Hundreds and Liberties to an inconvenient amount, the Magistrates have taken advantage of the above Acts, so as to arrange convenient districts for each Petty-Sessions, without superseding (further than was indispensable) the limits of the now obsolete Hundred Courts. The Alphabetical arrangement of Parishes is well adapted for displaying the Comparative Amount of Population in 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831; and involves in its formation a severe scrutiny of defaulting places in former Enumerations; which scrutiny would be complete, were it possible in all cases to ascribe the Population accurately; but from the occasional diversity of name and description, and from the unmentioned junction or separa¬ tion of places in the several Enumerations, it is not certain that the present investigation has been in every instance successful, although no labour has been spared in the endeavour to attain to accuracy. The number of places defaulting in 1801 may be taken at 264; and the defective Population may be estimated at 73,000, allowing for the probable increase since 1801:—the defaulting places in 1811 at 104, and the then defective Population may be estimated at 23,000, allowing for the increase since 1811. In 1821, twenty-five places made default, of which the then Population is estimated at 10,500. The Annual Value of Real property having been ascertained for the purpose of taxation in 1815, (midway in the Thirty Years) the first column is assigned to this sort of infor¬ mation, which, as far as regards England, is copied from the Poor Rate Return Volume of that Year, which was compiled from the. Property Tax Assessments; and now appears, for the first time, as regarding Scotland, drawn from a source of equal authenticity. In cases where the Population; of a place is for any reason divided in entry, the entire annual value is usually ascribed to the largest entry of Population; and in some instances the junction or separation of Townships in the same Parish, requires local knowledge for the due appor¬ tionment of the Annual Value. A severe Tax cannot be enforced to the utmost, so that land is not much less in annual value than the amount of Assessment in 1815: Houses have certainly increased in value since that time; but such unavoidable inaccuracy will not influence the experienced mind to reject or even to discountenance approximations to useful knowledge, great part of which must always consist of imperfect information; if the valuation of 1815 approaches within a Tenth, or even a Fifth part of the truth, its usefulness (statistically speaking) cannot reasonably be disputed. So if the Area of every Parish in England could be assigned to it within the same limits of approximation, an accession of useful knowledge could not but accrue; and an attempt is now in progress, which, if suc¬ cessful, will furnish an additional column in the larger Abstract hereafter to be laid before Parliament, and which must embrace all the information obtained under the Population Act of 1830. B At