English population statistics

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English population statistics

The first national census of the British population was organised in 1801; the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths commenced in 1837; and the first tentative attempt by the state to compile statistics on migration was included in the census of 1841. Prior to 1801, the chief source of information on the demography of the country was provided by the clergy’s registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials that had occurred in their parishes, supplemented by information on mortality in the Bills of Mortality that were published for certain large towns and by inferences drawn from various counts of taxpayers. The article focuses on the reliability of the parochial registration system and the way in which it was exploited by the state as measured against the state’s objectives for establishing it in 1538. These objectives were rarely achieved. By the end of the 18th century, the parish registers were falling short of providing a national system of registration. Neither had the registers at any time provided the requisite detail to allow the verification of age, lineal descent, or right of inheritance. They had not been used as a way of raising revenue except briefly between 1694 and 1705. Moreover, the Anglican Church was extremely lax about the enforcement of its own regulations regarding the appropriate time for registering baptisms, burials, and marriages.

Three sets of demographic statistics are useful to governments and others concerned with their nations’ political and economic stability. The first is an enumeration of the number of inhabitants distinguished by age, sex, and occupation. The second involves a continuous record of population trends from the registration of births, marriages, and burials. The third is documentation of the extent of internal and external migration. Before 1800, England had none of these except for the civil registration of births, marriages, and burials briefly attempted under the Commonwealth (1653–1660) and an even more short-lived initiative of the same kind in 1694 in connection with the attempt to raise a tax on the occasion of every birth, marriage, and death—paupers excepted.

The ability of the registration system to fulfill these original objectives can be measured in terms of the breadth of its coverage and the quality of the information provided. Each category can be further subdivided. For example, the breadth of coverage can be defined to include the speed with which parishes throughout the country commenced the registration of baptisms, marriages, and burials; the percentage of the population whose vital events went unrecorded even in the parishes that established registers; and the success of the incumbents and churchwardens in preserving the registers completed by their predecessors. The quality of the recording can be assessed based on the amount of information offered about individuals mentioned in the registers, the extent to which that information was provided in a standard form across the country, and the clarity of the presentation (whether separate registers for baptisms, marriages, and burials were maintained). The accuracy of the work undertaken by the parochial clergy as unpaid servants of the state in providing Rickman with the totals of baptisms, marriages, and burials can also be assessed. Each of these aspects will now be considered in turn before an assessment of the overall effectiveness of the registration system is attempted. Cromwell’s brief instructions establishing the registration system did not specify what sort of register book was to be provided. Not unnaturally, most parishes chose to use paper rather than the dearer, but more durable, parchment. In 1597, the Convocation of the clergy, bishops, and archbishop of the province of Canterbury found it necessary to order parchment copies of all entries from old paper registers, instructions that were soon reissued in 1603.

[edit] References

• Abstract (1833). Abstract of the Answers and Returns made pursuant to an act passed in the eleventh year of the reign of His MajestyKing George IV intituled an act for taking an account of the population of Great Britain, and the increase and diminution thereof. Population Register Abstract 1831. British Parliamentary Papers, 38.

• Arkell, T. (1992). An examination of the poll taxes of the late seventeenth century, the Marriage Duty Act and Gregory King.

• K. Schurer, & T. Arkell (Eds.), Surveying the people. The interpretation and use of document sources for the study of population in the late seventeenth century ( pp. 142–177). Oxford: Leopard’s Hill Press.

• Boulton, J. (1992). The Marriage Duty Act and parochial registration in London, 1695–1706. In K. Schurer, & T. Arkell (Eds.), Surveying the people. The interpretation and use of document sources for the study of population in the late seventeenth century ( pp. 222–252). Oxford: Leopard’s Hill Press.

• Boulton, J. (1993). Clandestine marriage in London: an examination of the neglected urban variable. Urban History, 20,

191–210.