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The latest 1911 census project news
November update
05/11/2008
It's been a busy couple of months for the 1911 census scanning team. September and October discoveries have included:
Four professional footballers - Rochdale and Crystal Palace players among them.
A comment from an enumerator asserting that seven child household members are the illegitimate offspring of the housekeeper.
A man who lists his occupation as 'inventor and model maker'.
Yet more suffragettes.
September update
11/09/2008
During scanning in the month of August we found:
The household of Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, the second Duke of Westminster - he's living with his daughter, Lady Ursula Grosvenor, and 18 servants. Grosvenor competed for Great Britain in the 1908 London Olympics as a motorboat racer. He was also noted for his support of various right-wing causes, and his romantic pursuit of French fashion designer Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel. He died in 1953, aged 74.
The return for one household lists the family cat as a domestic servant, giving the feline's nationality as 'Persian'. We hope the enumerator appreciated the joke.
One householder, apparently objecting to the intrusive nature of the census, writes on the return:
'Would you like to know what our income is, what each had for breakfast and how long we expect to live on anything else?'
August update
22/08/2008
With the passing of another month comes a host of new discoveries made by our scanning team. These include:
A number of doodles on census returns, including a sketch of a figure in a bowler hat, and a man in a high-buttoned military style jacket.
A rather unusual entry, which reads 'tramp - slept out in backyard'.
A man who lists his occupation as '(anything) nothing special', suggesting the understated British sense of humour was very much alive in 1911.
George William Coventry, 9th Earl of Coventry, a Conservative politician who was involved in horseracing. He is living with his wife, son, and an incredible 16 servants.
July update
25/07/2008
Our transcription and image scanning projects continue apace.
Interesting discoveries for June include:
Lord Mountbatten, listed as Prince Louis of Battenberg.
Musician and composer John Greenwood.
A head of household and eldest son whose first names were ‘Redemption’.
Lots more suffragette protestors.
June update
13/06/2008
Our scanning project continues apace in readiness for the 2009 launch. The quality of the books has generally been very good, with little remedial work needed.
The month of May has yielded a plethora of interesting discoveries:
We've found author John Masefield, who served as Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967. His most famous works are probably his classic children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, along with his large array of poetry.
The Women's Freedom League, a suffragette organisation, arranged a boycott of the 1911 census. We've already found three apparent sympathisers. One of them, who left the census return otherwise blank, has written:
‘No vote – no census. In view of restrictive legislation… I refuse to give details of my household asked for in this document'.
Another - who has partially completed the form – declares:
'If I am intelligent enough to fill in this paper, I am intelligent enough to put a cross on a voting paper.'
She also lists '6 females - addresses and names unknown' who, we can guess, were fellow suffragettes. Many attended all-night parties or stayed with friends to avoid participation.
We uncovered an enumerator (or possibly a householder) with a penchant for doodling and an apparent taste for the east – on two separate pages are ink drawings of what appears to be an oriental woman; one of them directly above a household.
We've found a disparaging comment made by the head of a household about a woman in his service. Scrawled on the bottom of the census return is:
'This woman calls herself "about forty" and refuses to say more. She looks 60. She leaves my service tomorrow.'
Other finds include: an Earl and Countess, a (presumably) unnamed child listed simply as 'baby', a vocalist with a laryngologist husband, and a man whose occupation is recorded as 'dealer in Christmas cards of fancy stationary & fancy goods commercial traveller 7 months of the year selling the above goods'.
May update
01/05/2008
As another month passes the digitisation project for the 1911 census is progressing well. Our team of experts is working round-the-clock in preparation for the first data release.
Some interesting discoveries from the past month are:
RG14 piece sequences from the areas of Hemel Hempstead, Amersham, and Eton contained significant numbers of books that were in poor condition. Hemel Hempstead in particular contained books with pages showing signs of extensive damage and needed repair and treatment by the Conservation Care team at The National Archives.
One particular piece in Suffolk contained some strikingly ornate calligraphy.
We found two Cambridgeshire residents whose occupations, today, might seem a little unusual. One of the men was a 'mole killer' and the other a 'mole catcher'.
RG78 series complete
12/12/2007
Scotland Online is delighted to announce that the scanning of the RG78 series - Enumerators’ Summary Books - is now complete. Some 570,000 images have been produced. Transcription of these images is now well underway and due for completion by the end of Dec 2007.
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Ooooh I am exasperated. I registered. My name is easy, as is my email address and my post code. The country I live in was far more difficult. E for England, no. U for United Kingdon, no. G for Great Britain, no. Then scrolling right up the top I found that it was GB for United Kingdom. Is it just me?
