Census and Social Structure

First Published in 1978. The census of population is a key source for any study of nineteenth-century England. In association with parish registers and, from 1837, the civil registers recording births, deaths and marriages, population numbers and trends, the essential dynamic basis of population analysis, may be studied. For the present day student they are an incomparable storehouse of data for the historian and social scientist; indeed in almost any study of the nineteenth century we must sooner or later turn to the census for information.

About the Author

Richard Lawton is Professor of Geography and head of the Department in the University of Liverpool. He has written on population trends and mobility in nineteenth-century England and has recently completed a study of the social geography of mid­ Victorian Liverpool.