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The Census of Ringmer

General Introduction

 

enumerator

There have been attempts to count and record the population of England ever since the Domesday Book and probably even before then. Those in authority have wanted this information for many purposes, such as taxation, raising armies and recording land use. In the early days there was no attempt to cover the entire country, and the results were somewhat sketchy. In the eighteenth century there was a great political debate as to whether the population was rising or falling and whether or not the agricultural workers were able to produce enough food for everyone. This brought about the census as we understand it today.

With the exception of 1941, the census has been taken every ten years since 1801. Collecting information for the early censuses was the responsibility of the clergy and the overseers of the poor. The clergy were involved as there were originally questions relating to baptisms, marriages and burials.

So, Mr. Smith, let's summarise shall we... You are 50, your wife is 48. You live here with 10 of your children, ranging in age from 24 to 6 months. You have 3 grandchildren aged 5 years to 3 weeks.... and your widowed mother still insists that she is only 31! The first census to record names was taken on Sunday 6 June in 1841. This is the first census on the Ringmer website. Current plans are to display the indices for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901. Please be patient - enumerators handwriting can be difficult to read, making indexing slow and laborious.

Full transcriptions are not displayed. Listed here you will only find the names of those staying in Ringmer on the night before census day. If you think you have found someone you are looking for, you are welcome to request further information by e-mailing the website at [email protected]. Your ‘name’ will then be looked up and any further information available will be forwarded to you. Different people do the look-ups for different censuses, so please state which name on which census you are interested in.

I would like to record here my thanks to those who have devoted much time to make these indexes available to us. You will find the individual censuses attributed to the person who transcribed them.

 


1841 Notes 1841 Names

1851 Notes 1851 Names

1861 Notes 1861 Names

1871 Notes 1871 Names

1881 Notes 1881 Names

1891 Notes 1891 Names

1901 Notes 1901 Names