Census of Northern Ireland, 1926

Matthew Woollard

No census was taken in Ireland in 1921 because of the Anglo-Irish war which continued until July of that year. The partition of Ireland became law in December 1920 with the Government of Ireland Act and reality by the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Partition meant that six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster became known as Northern Ireland.

An act was passed by the Northern Ireland parliament in 1925 authorising the taking of a census in 1926. The Census (Northern Ireland) Act, 1925 is given the reference of (15 & 16 Geo. V, c. 21) but it is worth noting that this cap. number is not part of the GB sequence.

Legislation was preceded by the establishment of a census committee made up of representatives from each of the Northern Irish ministries. After deliberation this committee recommended that the census be informed by a schedule very similar to that used in England and Wales in 1921. The census was taken under the auspices of the Register-General Office of Northern Ireland which was in turn superintended by the Ministry of Finance.

The census was to be de facto and self-enumerated, that is enumerators were to deliver, collect and scrutinise the schedules which had been completed by householders. At this census, as in earlier censuses in Ireland, the police were used as enumerators – in this case a total of 1,070 police constables or sergeants were allocated to an enumeration district. The enumerators did not copy these householders schedules into an Enumerators Book. The census reference date is given as midnight of 18th/19th April 1926.

Despite the relatively small population of Northern Ireland, it was decided that machine tabulation rather than hand ticking would be used for the tabulation of the information collected. This meant that enumerators no longer had to copy information into enumerators' books ; instead, clerks at the General Register Office entered the information to be coded onto the schedules. (One interesting fact was presented in the General Report: the average rate for coding birthplace and nationality was 989 entries per hour, compared with only 412 for occupation.) Once the schedules had been coded, the data were punched onto punch cards for machine tabulation. An illustration of the punch card used can be found in the report (General report, xii). Once tabulation had taken place the various reports were arranged and prepared for publication. The county reports were issued in the first half of 1928.

This census was very much in line with that of Great Britain in 1921, though it retained one of the special questions of the 1911 Irish census — religion. Questions asked included: name, relationship to head of household, age, sex, marriage, orphanhood (under 16 only), birthplace, nationality, religion, school enrolment, occupation, industry, National Insurance entitlement, infirmities and fertility of marriage. Interestingly, while the potentially divisive question on religion was asked, no question relating to Gaelic speaking was included. In an attempt to secure better quality age information, age was to be stated on the schedule in years and months.

Seven 'county' reports were published, one for each of the six counties and the County Borough of Belfast. Each contained population figures for the smaller administrative units, including townlands, and tables dealing with the ages and marital statuses, education, industries, birthplaces, religion, orphanhood and people suffering from infirmities. Each of these volumes contained a short commentary on the more exceptional features of the tables. A General report was also published in April 1929. This report contained commentary and tables on all the questions asked, along with detailed definitions of the salient terminology. Four diagrams were included along with a map of the density of population by District Electoral Divisions. Appendices to the report also contained the text of the Census Act, a copy of the householders' schedule, instructions to the enumerators and a table showing the correspondence between the occupational and industrial classifications used in Northern Ireland in 1926 and those used in England and Wales in 1921. (In essence, a number of 1921 headings were conflated for use in Northern Ireland, and some were split for greater detail.)

The final volume to be published was a topographical index which dealt with each type of administrative area for which statistics were published in the county reports, including references to the 6-inch Ordnance Survey maps. It also included a brief historical survey of the various administrative units into which Northern Ireland was divided.

REFERENCES

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, Belfast county borough (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: Belfast County Borough, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County of Antrim (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County of Antrim, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County of Armagh (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County of Armagh, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County of Down (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County of Down, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County of Fermanagh (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County of Fermanagh, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County and county borough of Londonderry (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County and County Borough of Londonderry, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, County of Tyrone (Belfast, HMSO, 1928). [View this document: County of Tyrone, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, Topographical index (Belfast, HMSO, 1929). [View this document: Topographical index, Northern Ireland, 1926]

Census of Northern Ireland, 1926, General report (Belfast, HMSO, 1929). [View this document: General report, Northern Ireland, 1926]