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Recording the Census

The 1841 and 1851 Censuses were undertaken under the authority of the Home Office in London and they were assisted by local sheriffs. Census officials were mainly local school teachers.

From 1861 onwards it became the responsibility of the Registrar General under the provisions of an Act in 1860 for taking the census in Scotland. The Registrar General used the network of local registrars to divide their districts into convenient units for enumeration.

Parishes and cities were divided up into registration districts which contained up to 200 houses. Each district had a Census official called an enumerator who distributed a form called a census schedule to every household in that area before census night. They assisted the head of the household to fill in the census schedule as accurately and as truthfully as possible. The schedule asked questions about the inhabitants of the house such as their age, occupation and relation to the head of the household. In large institutions such as hospitals and prisons the governor of that institution usually acted as the enumerator.

The forms were collected the following day after they had been filled in, the details checked and then the information copied into enumeration books by the enumerators. The enumerators returned the enumeration book and the census schedules to the local registrar who in turn checked them and sent them to the Census Office. The Census information that we see derives from the enumeration books. Unfortunately, the original census schedules were destroyed.

With the passing of the Census (Great Britain) Act 1900, Parliament returned to the practice, changed in 1860, of making provision in a single enactment for the taking of the census throughout Great Britain.

To assist in the speed and accuracy of the census results, Hollerith machines were used for the first time for the 1911 census using punch card technology. Hollerith tabulating machines were invented by Herman Hollerith who had successfully used them for the 1890 American census. Herman went on to start a company called The Tabulating Machine Company which was one of three companies that merged to become International Business Machines (IBM).