The history of censuses
Censuses of populations have been taken across the world for millennia – the earliest known were created by the Babylonians in 4000 BCE, and clay tiles at the British Museum reveal that they regularly counted the population to assess how much food was needed. The Egyptians and Chinese created lists of people too, with nearly 60 million recorded in China in 2 AD, while the Romans took a census across their empire every five years from about the sixth century BCE.
Although there were some censuses in England and Wales before 1801, they were sporadic. The Domesday Book of 1086, with its list of the main male landowners, numbers of serfs and slaves and so on, is probably the earliest population listing. Unlike the modern variety it includes details of livestock and productive land.
National census returns evolved in 1801 as the UK rapidly moved from being an agricultural society towards industrialisation. The idea of regularly counting the population was one of the first responses to radical social and political change, especially the rising population.
Whether copies of the national ones or created independently, parish census returns are another variation in this long history of counting people. While the motivations of parish officials for doing so are not always stated, it is clear that most were compiled to help with the practical business of running the parish and local institutions. At the same time the parish officials who wrote down relationships, occupations, religion and comments on peoples’ character reflect much more about society and their own attitudes and interests.