Imperial censuses

Edward Higgs

The censuses of the United Kingdom, and of its constituent parts, have always been enumerations of the population of these islands on one night of the year. However, the General Register Office (GRO) in London, which was responsible for the British census in 1841 and 1851 and in England and Wales thereafter, saw the country as the centre of a world empire. It was perhaps inevitable, therefore, that it should attempt to grasp the magnitude of the British Empire in statistical terms.

The first attempt to publish data about the empire as whole was in the GRO's General Report for the 1861 census. The text of the Report stated that 'The Secretary of State for India in Council procured returns of the numbers, ages, civil condition, occupations, and birth-places of the British-born subjects (exclusive of the Army) resident in India at the date of the Census; and by the Secretary of State for the Colonies the latest returns of the population of the colonial possessions and dependencies of the British Crown were obtained'. There was a single page of commentary in the General Report which noted that the censuses of the Australian colonies were taken on the same day and planned as that in England and Wales. But the Government of India was said to be 'too weak to procure an accurate enumeration of the population', so the figures given were a 'rough approximation'. There were also an extensive number of tables for colonies and possessions, giving at least area and population, but some going into more detail. Some figures appear to have been the result of censuses, many taken in April 1861 (but also at other dates), but others look as if they were merely estimates. The total population of the empire was estimated at 174,389,308. (Census of England and Wales, 1861, Vol III. General Report, 4, 72, 171–217).

The imperial theme was even more to the fore in 1871. The 1871 General Report opened with the proud statement that 'this is the first time that a census has been taken of the British Empire'. This seems to have meant that it was the first time that an enumeration had been made of the whole empire at the same time, 'everywhere the people have been enumerated. The numbers are not mere estimates, such as are often quoted, but counted facts.' There was now a much more extensive description of the size and state of the Empire. But an inspection of the detailed tables in an appendix shows that the censuses did not all take place on the same day, although most were in early 1871. But the tables were more detailed in many cases than in 1861 (Census of England and Wales, 1871, Vol. IV. (General Report), vii, lxxvi–lxxxii, 231–351).

In the next two censuses, those of 1881 and 1891, interest in the Empire seems to have waned. The General Reports of these years merely contain a one-page commentary — a dry recitation of numbers — and one bald table giving areas and populations of colonies and dependencies. However, separate reports for certain parts of the Empire, such as India, continued to be published down to the First World War at the initiative of other departments. This seems to have been in line with the general decline in the scope and ambition of the GRO in the final decades of the nineteenth century (Higgs, 90–128). But in 1901 the GRO returned to the pattern of former years. The 1901 General Report only contained a page of text and three pages of tables showing the area and population of the individual colonies and dependencies (Census of England and Wales, 1901, General report, 188, 315–7). However, there was also a whole separate volume dedicated to the census of the British Empire, with an introductory text and extensive tables (Census of the British Empire 1901). The push for this expanded publication may have come from the energetic Joseph Chamberlain, who had been appointed Colonial Secretary in 1895. The General Report noted that in the West Indies 'the financial position' of some of the colonies 'precluded them from incurring the cost of a complete Census'. Also, in 'relatively unorganised territories, such as the West African colonies, only a 'rough guess' at the population could be given. Conditions in South Africa during the Boer War also made the taking of a census impossible until 1904 (Census of England and Wales, 1901, General report, 188).

But this level of attention to the Empire did not last. In the 1911 General Report one still finds quite extensive summary tables on the Empire but not much in the way of commentary. Published at the end of the First World War, the General Report indicated that a great deal of material had been collected but that it could not be digested before the outbreak of War, so the production of a general report on the lines of 1901 was delayed. But this report never materialised, and this may have been due to a lack of confidence in the result of such an exercise. As the 1911 General Report put it, 'the Report on the Census of the Empire published in 1906, has raised a doubt in our minds how far a Report on these lines which, after all, can only be a brief epitome of the returns serves any very useful purpose. It can never in any case supersede in interest the separate reports prepared by those familiar with the local circumstances and problems of the various portions of the Empire...' (Census of England and Wales, 1911, General Report, 9, 286–348).

In the Census Reports of 1921 and 1931, the British Empire had almost disappeared as a theme. Censuses were still taken in the same year across the Empire. However the only results of these censuses was given as part of a two page discussion of 'International Changes in Population', in which population totals for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Ceylon and South Africa, were given alongside those of mainly European countries. There was no attempt to give an itemised picture of the British Empire as a whole. The Empire as a statistical idea was in retreat long before its actual demise after the Second World War.

REFERENCES

Census of England and Wales, 1861, Vol. III. General Report BPP 1863 LIII. Pt. I.[View this document: General report . England and Wales. 1861]

Census of England and Wales, 1871, Vol. IV. General Report BPP 1873 LXXI Pt. II. [View this document: General report, England and Wales. 1871]

Census of England and Wales, 1901, General report, with appendices, BPP 1904 CVIII. [View this document: General report, England and Wales, 1901]

Census of the British Empire, 1901, Census of the British Empire, 1901, BPP 1905 CII. [View this document: Census of the British Empire, Report, 1901]

Census of England and Wales, 1911, General report with appendices BPP 1917–18 XXXV. [View this document: General report, England and Wales, 1911]

Edward Higgs, Life, death and statistics: civil registration, censuses and the work of the General Register Office, 1837–1952 (Hatfield, 2004).