CAN WE TRUST THE CENSUS REPORTS? LESSONS FROM A STUDY OF DOMESTIC SERVANTS IN TENBURY, WORCESTERSHIRE, 1851 AND 1861
Family & Community History, 5 (2):
99-110 (2002)Abstract
Compares those designated as domestic servants in the 1851 and 1861 census enumerators' books for Tenbury, Worcestershire, with the figures in the corresponding census reports and considers the role of the census office clerks in arriving at these published figures. Many so-called kin servants were included in the census reports in both years, but the basis of this inclusion by the census clerks was inconsistent. Many, and possibly most, of these kin servants should not have been included in the occupational tables of the census reports, and there may have been a significant overstatement of the national totals for domestic servants in these two census years. The findings are compared with those of Higgs (1986) and Anderson (1998), and suggestions are made for reconciling apparent differences and for identifying the role of the census office clerks in processing the data in the census enumerators' books. J