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The Social Structure of a Bedfordshire Parish in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

The Cardington Census Enumerators' Books, 1851

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

N. L. Tranter
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In an earlier article, I outlined some of the main social and demographic characteristics of the Bedfordshire parish of Cardington during the late eighteenth century, using for the purpose the invaluable survey of the parish compiled by a local schoolmaster, James Lilbourne, in 1782. Because of the growing interest in the historical process of social change, it has been thought worthwhile to examine the socio-demographic structure of Cardington at a later period. The date chosen for this second snap-shot was 1851 and the source materials used are the enumerators' schedules of the parish which were prepared for the census of that year. Although the listings for 1782 and 1851 differ somewhat, both in the nature of their content and in the degree of their coverage of the local population, a crude comparison between them has proved to be possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 1973 , pp. 90 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1973

References

page 90 note 1 Tranter, N. L., “Population and Social Structure in a Bedfordshire Parish: The Cardington Listing of Inhabitants, 1782”, in: Population Studies, XXI (1967), pp. 261–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 90 note 2 Laslett, P., “Size and Structure of the Household in England over Three Centuries,” in: Population Studies, XXIII (1969), pp. 199–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nixon, J. W., “Comments on Peter Laslett's Paper”, in: Population Studies, XXIV (1970), pp. 445–447CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laslett, P., “A Comment on J. W. Nixon's Note”, in: Population Studies, XXIV (1970), pp. 449–454Google Scholar; Law, C. M., “Local Censuses in the 18th Century”, in: Population Studies, XXIII (1969), pp. 87–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 90 note 3 Throughout the subsequent text the term “household” should be taken to mean separate dwelling-house, i.e. each dwelling forms one household and may contain more than one family.

page 90 note 4 For a list of the occupations included in each of the categories see Appendix I.

page 91 note 1 For the nature of these schedules, and for a discussion of the methodology in their use see, Armstrong, W. A., “Social Structure from the Early Census Returns”, in: Wrigley, E. A. ed., An Introduction to English Historical Demography (London, 1966), pp. 209–237.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 For a description of the 1782 listing see Tranter, loc. cit., pp. 261–263.

page 91 note 3 See Appendix II, and compare with Tranter, loc. cit., p. 281.

page 92 note 1 The census return for Cardington in 1851 gives a total population of 1,455 (719 males and 736 females). My own count of the enumerators' returns gives a population of 1,451 (716 males and 735 females).

page 92 note 2 Tranter, loc. cit., pp. 265–266.

page 93 note 1 65.2% of all males and 74.8% of all females resident in “farmer” households were classified as single, see Appendix III.

page 95 note 1 Cf. 15.4% of cottage tenement households in 1782, Tranter, loc. cit., p. 268.

page 95 note 2 Compare the data on Table 5 with Tranter, loc. cit., p. 269.

page 95 note 3 Tbid., p. 271.

page 95 note 4 Ibid., pp. 270–271.

page 95 note 5 Ibid., p. 270.

page 97 note 1 In 1851, of all households with resident servants the majority of which were “farmer” households and can therefore be roughly equated with “non-cottage” households in 1782, only 50% were composed of household heads and their immediate offspring – a similar ratio to that found for all households in the parish in 1851 (see Table 6), and one which was much lower than that for “non-cottage” properties in 1782.

page 97 note 2 See Table 3.

page 97 note 3 See Table 4.

page 98 note 1 In 1782, 6.7% of the cottage tenement population were lodgers. See Tranter, loc. cit., p. 271.

page 99 note 1 In passing, we may note that, as in 1782, households with resident grandchildren were rarities. In 1851 only eighteen households (6.3% of the total) contained grandchildren.

page 100 note 1 Tranter, loc. cit., pp. 276–277.

page 103 note 1 Lincolnshire County Record Office, Speculum Number 4, ca. 1788–1792.

page 103 note 2 180 households multiplied by an assumed average household size of 4.5.