THE 1831 CENSUS

Jad Adams explains the complicated political context of the fourth UK census, and highlights some of its key revelations about the lives of our ancestors

How you can use online records of the 1831 census

The 1831 census was conducted at a time when the country was as close to revolution as it came in the whole of the 19th century.

The Great Reform

Bill exposed major divisions over political reform. It was designed to remodel the electoral system where small settlements sometimes had two members of parliament, in the pocket of local landowners, while new towns like Manchester had none. The Bill was intended to force the Tory landowners to

‘Slavery was the source of much of the wealth of elite Tory families’

relinquish some power in favour of the new industrialists.

The census was taken three months after the Bill had been introduced on 1 March, starting a crisis that lasted more than a year.

The Bill was defeated but after a general election in June it was passed, then rejected by the House of Lords, leading to widespread rioting. Finally the Lords were forced to capitulate in 1832 and the Great Reform Act became law at last.

Society was still in turmoil, however. One of the first acts of the reformed House of Commons was to enact the cherished dream of all reformers to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. Slavery was the source of much of the wealth of elite Tory families, while their middleclass opponents had invested in the factories. The slave-owners accused the mill-owners of rank hypocrisy, arguing that the

A mob attacks Sir Charles Wetherell, the recorder of Bristol and an opponent of reform, upon his entry into the city in October 1831