The Census! The Farce was a play performed in the aftermath of the 1861 census© British Library Board
Among the Britons who will put their details in neat boxes for the UK census next month, millions will do so while questioning the necessity of the task.
Even the government seemed poised to abandon the pen-pushing plan before being elected, possibly only continuing due to the prohibitive costs of not posing a set of questions finalised at the end of 2009.
From our grasp of English to the central heating systems we use, the first survey for 100 years will quiz a nation of respondents who risk a £1,000 fine for failing to comply.
Evidence suggests women were concerned that the census devalued both their role in their households and the status of their employment© British Library Board
Opening three weeks before the official Census Day on March 27, the display of demography will unleash everything from 18th century political scholar Thomas Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population to individual returns, insights into the earliest attempts to introduce a census in England 250 years ago and enough photographs, charts, maps and public information broadcasts to leave any dissenter temporarily transfixed.
The Census, from Punch (April 1861)© British Library Board
“In Census and Society we illustrate issues that have been and remain important to us. As well as urgent and serious concerns, we also include more playful and creative reactions to the census.”
Censuses through the centuries:
- Queen Victoria described her occupation as The Queen in the 1851 census. Albert was listed as Head of Household, but the Queen addressed this a decade later and Albert was relegated to the title of “husband”.
- Between 1871 and 1911 the census asked if people were “lunatics”, “imbeciles” or “idiots”. “It is against human nature to expect a mother to admit her young child to be an idiot, however much she may fear this to be true,” accepted the Registrar General in 1881. “To acknowledge the fact is to abandon all hope.”
- Registrar General Sir George North urged women to be more honest about their age during publicity for the 1951 census, heralding hundreds of concerned letters to newspaper and magazine problem pages.
- One man described an occupant of his house as Peter Tabby, listing his occupation as “mouser” and his nationality as Persian. The enumerator crossed out the entry with red ink, sternly noting: “This is a cat.”
- Top names include Parsley Bacon the Cheesemonger, Rose Bush, Shrove Tuesday, Sunday School, May Day, Winter Day, Winter Frost, Easter Card, Christmas Day and Hairy Head.
- Top occupations include professional wizard, punch and judy man, black pudding makers from Blackburn, a retired opium smuggler – referring to his previous job in Shanghai – and people who described themselves as “generally useful”.
