| Description | Records of the 1821 Census and the 1831 Census. These censuses cover the parish of All Saints, Poplar comprising Poplar, Blackwall, and the Isle of Dogs. The Poplar censuses are rare survivors from these early censuses. They are important sources for tracing individuals and communities in the late Georgian period.
The 1821 and 1831 censuses are less detailed than later census returns. They usually contain the following information:
- The parishioner's name, address (sometimes a house number has been recorded), the number of families occupying the premises, together with the total number of persons (including separate lists for males and females). In the 1831 the occupation of the head of household is usually given. Occupations such as ship builders, shipwrights, mariners, ship chandler's, sawyers, coopers, carpenters, painters, ropemakers and mastmakers are reflected in the census records.
- Multi-occupancy houses are shown by a '/' plus a number after the total figure, e.g. '12/4' - this denotes a total of 12 people in a house occupied by 4 households.
- Several names and addresses have been repeated.
- The '#' (hashtag) sign has been placed after a surname means that this entry has been crossed through by the enumerator.
To differentiate between volumes one and two, the letter 'B' has been added to the page numbers for the second volume. A large number of pages are blank. |
| AdminHistory | The census is a head count of everyone in the country on a given day. A census has been taken in England and Wales, and separately for Scotland, every ten years since 1801, with the exception of 1941. The census mainly aimed to provide the government summary information about the population.
The first censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831 were less detailed than later returns. In these censuses the lists of individuals were not collected centrally by government. Parishes were responsible for collecting and submitting only summary census statistics to the government. Poplar parish retained the full census. Other parishes did not routinely retain these records. |