A nationwide census was conducted in England and Wales on 31 March 1901. It contains records for 32 million people and 6 million houses, It covers the whole of England and Wales, with the exception of parts of Deal in Kent

Deal, Kent

Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...

. Separate censuses were held in Scotland and Ireland. Certain parts of the records have suffered damage and therefore some information is missing, but it is largely complete.

The UK has taken a census of its population every ten years since 1841. In addition to providing a wealth of interesting information about aspects of the make-up of the country, the results of the census plays an important part in the calculation of resource allocation to regional and local service providers, by national and European government.

Information included

The entries for households on the census returns for 1901 fall under the following headings and are generally the same for 1851 to 1891:
Road, street, town or village, number or name of house, Whether the house is inhabited or not, Name and surname of each person, Relation to Head of Family, Condition as to marriage, Age last birthday, Profession or occupation, Whether employed or not, Where born, Whether deaf and dumb, blind, lunatic, imbecile or feeble-minded

Feeble-minded

The term feeble-minded was used from the late nineteenth century in Great Britain, Europe and the United States to refer to a specific type of "mental deficiency". At the time, mental deficiency was an umbrella term, which encompassed all degrees of educational and social deficiency...

. Also crews of Vessels and residents of Institutions. One of the most notable people who appeared in the census was Harry Patch

Harry Patch

Henry John "Harry" Patch , known in his latter years as "the Last Fighting Tommy", was a British supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War...

, who died in 2009 at the age of 111. Patch was the last surviving veteran of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, fighting at the Battle of Passchendaele. Patch was two years old at the time of the census.

Online access

The census data was published online in 2003 on a site is run by The National Archive

The National Archives (UK)

The National Archives is a UK government department and an executive agency of the Secretary of State for Justice. It is "the UK government's official archive, containing 1,000 years of history"...

 and users have to pay per view to access the data. Since then the data has been available on other sites such as ancestry.com  and findmypast.com

Find My Past

Find My Past is a leading UK-based online genealogy service owned by UK company Brightsolid. It was awarded the Queen's Award for Innovation in 2007. In October 2011 Find My Past used the new UK product placement legislation opportunites by sponsoring a genealogy TV series...

 on a subscription basis. The data is mainly used by genealogists, family historians, name researchers and anyone wanting to know more about their Welsh and English ancestors in 1901. It can also be used to research hamlets, villages and parishes to build a historical perspective.

The rest of the United Kingdom

Note that when referring to the Census of England and Wales, sometimes it is described as "the UK Census" or "the British Census". This is in error, as the Census of England and Wales does not include the Census of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 or of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The data for the census of these regions of the UK are held in different locations to that of the England and Wales Census.

Prior to the secession of the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

, the whole of Ireland

Kingdom of Ireland

The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...

engaged in the census on the same night. Unfortunately none of the Census returns from Ireland for the 19th century still exist. The 1901 Census is the first complete Census, and is available online.