Population

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II.—POPULATION.


1. GENERAL.

Definition of Population. —It is desirable in the first place to state precisely what is meant by the population of a given area in English census reports. The population of any area in this country has always meant the population actually present within its boundaries at the date of the census. Thus the population enumerated at midnight on Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, in the several areas into which England and Wales is divided, includes private residents, both permanent and temporary, the inmates of institutions and other large establishments, the military population, the vagrant population, and the persons on board vessels which were in the ports on census night or which arrived there on the following day. The only exceptions made were in the cases of persons engaged in night work, or who were travelling on the night of the census; such persons were counted as belonging to the population of the place at which they arrived on Monday, April 3rd.

In various other countries, such as France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and the Dominion of Canada, particulars are obtained not only of the number of persons actually present in each area at the census date (de facto population), but also of all the inhabitants of each area whether present or not, to the exclusion of persons usually living in other areas but who happen to be within the area in question on the census date (de jure population). The latter form of enumeration would be of great value for a number of purposes, and the arguments in its favour have lately been strengthened by the introduction of a similar de jure method of enumeration of births and deaths instead of the simpler, but in many cases misleading, de facto form of enumeration previously followed in their case. The difficulties in the way, however, are very considerable, the chief perhaps being those of defining temporary and habitual residence clearly and comprehensively, and of securing intelligent observance of such definitions on the part of householders when filling up the schedules. Moreover, seeing that the enumeration is taken in this country both at an hour in the day and at a season of the year when persons are mostly in their own homes, it is probable that, with the exception of some few holiday resorts, the actual and the resident populations are closely approximate

Population and Rates of Increase. —The total number of persons returned as living in England and Wales at midnight on Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, was 36,070,492. The difference between the first and the final count of the total population has never been material in any recent census; in the present instance the unrevised total published in the Preliminary Report exceeded the final count by 4,777. The revised total showed an increase of 3,542,649 upon the number returned at the preceding enumeration in April, 1901, corresponding to a decennial rate of increase of 10'9 per cent. This rate of increase was the lowest met with since the date of the first census in 1801, as the following TABLE shows:—

TABLE I.—FAMILIES OR SEPARATE OCCUPIERS AND POPULATION AT EACH CENSUS, 1801-1911.

The rate of increase of population depends on two factors: (1) the balance between births and deaths, and (2) the balance between emigration and immigration. Of these factors the former has in this country always been a cause of increase since the commencement of registration, as the births have invariably outnumbered the deaths; while the latter is a cause of decrease at each census, as the emigrants are more numerous than the immigrants in each decennium; such at any rate has been the case since 1851. The recent decline in the rate of growth in the population might therefore be due either to a falling-off in the excess of births over deaths, or to an increase in the excess of emigrants over immigrants. From what follows it will be seen that the decline in the growth of population in the past intercensal period was due entirely to the latter cause. It will be observed from the subjoined statement that the decennial increase of population due to excess of births over deaths ("natural increase"), which had fallen from 15.09 per cent, in 1871-81 to 12.39 in 1891-1901, rose during the past decennium to 12.43 per cent. This rise, however, is so slight that for practical purposes the rate of natural increase may be regarded as having remained stationary.

Intercensal Period Increase per cent by Births Decrease per cent by Deaths Gain per cent
by Excess of Births
over Deaths or
Natural Increase
1861-1871 37.56 23.98 13.58
1871-1881 37.89 22.8 15.09
1881-1891 34.24 20.27 13.97
1891-1901 31.57 19.18 12.39
1901-1911 28.56 16.13 12.43

Although the rate in question has been maintained during the last decennium as a result of the remarkable decline in mortality throughout the period, it must be pointed out that there is no present likelihood of prolonged continuance of this experience, since there is as yet no indication of any check in the decline in the birth-rate, while it is obvious that the death-rate cannot continue to decline indefinitely.

It follows therefore that as the decline in the rate of growth in the population was not caused by a falling-off in natural increment, it must have been due to loss by migration.

The Board of Trade returns (now greatly improved) do not afford the means for accurately determining the number of emigrants or immigrants from or into England and Wales during 1901-1911, but it is possible to ascertain approximately the balance between emigration and immigration from the difference between the actual increase of population as recorded at the census and the natural increase, or that which would have occurred in the absence of any disturbing effect of migration.

TABLE II.—ACTUAL INCREASE AND NATURAL INCREASE OF POPULATION IN EACH INTERCENSAL PERIOD, 1871-1911.

The above figures show that the loss of population due to the excess of emigration over immigration, which had amounted to over 164,000 in 1871-1881 and over 600,000 in 1881-1891, fell to 68,000 in 1891-1901, and rose to over 500,000 persons in the past intercensal period had these half-million persons remained in the country the rate of increase of population in the decennium 1901-1911 would have been slightly greater than that in the preceding decennium.

International Growth of Population. —It will be of interest to compare the rate of growth of population in this and in other countries, and we are enabled to do this for the twenty-one countries shown in the following statement. In some of these countries viz., New Zealand, Denmark, Germany and France, a quinquennial census is usually taken but for purposes of comparison the decennial rate of increase is given in the table; the differing dates of taking the census in the different countries, being of no practical importance in this connexion, are ignored.

TABLE III.—POPULATION AND INCREASE PER CENT., IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, 1881-1911.

The prominent features in the above table are, on the one hand, the continuance of the decrease, although at a diminishing rate, of the population of Ireland, the stationary character of the French population, and the remarkable fall in the rate of growth in the last intercensal period in the Norwegian and Scottish populations. On the other hand, among the European countries the German Empire showed the highest rate of increase (15.2 per cent.), and in the British Empire abnormal rates of Growth were shown in the last decennium in the populations of the Dominion of Canada and of New Zealand. Comparing, for the period 1901-1911, the rate of growth of population in the United Kingdom with that prevailing in other European countries, it will be observed that in five countries—France, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Hungary—the rate of growth was below that in the United Kingdom, while in six—Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and the German Empire—the rate was above that in the United Kingdom.

Accelerated rates of increase were recorded throughout the three decennia in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and the German Empire, while in the United Kingdom, Norway, Austria and Switzerland the rate of growth, which had increased in the decennium 1891-1901, fell in the decennium 1901-1911. In the Australian Commonwealth, New Zealand, the Dominion of Canada and the United States the rates of increase were, as might be expected much above the European average. Commenting on the figures for the Indian Empire the Census Commissioner states, between 1891-1901 there were two widespread and disastrous famines which not only caused a heavy fall in the birth rate, but also, with the diseases which followed in their train, led to a mortality, chiefly in the Native States, of about five millions in excess of the normal. The ensuing ten years, though marked by a few local famines, were, on the whole, favourable to agriculture, and the result has been an accelerated growth of population."

Number of Families ,—As in the case of previous censuses, the figures given in the column for "Families or Separate Occupiers'' throughout Volumes I to IV correspond with the number of schedules collected, arid therefore include not only the numbers of private families, but also the numbers of institutions, large private establishments, vessels, caravans, &c., in each area. This practice obviously renders it impossible to obtain the number of private households or the average number of persons to a private family. With a view to obtaining this information while retaining the figures relating to families or separate occupiers" for comparison with those for the previous censuses, two new columns have been introduced into table 10 of Volume I and table 5 of Volume II, showing for each area dealt with the aggregate number of institutions, large establishments, vessels, &c., and the population enumerated therein, By deducting these numbers from the total number of schedules collected and from the total population enumerated, the approximate number of private families and the number of persons comprised in such families can be ascertained. The population of England and Wales at the date of the census of 1911 numbered 36,070,492, enumerated on 8,005,290 schedules; of these, 34,630 schedules (representing a population of 1,294,090 persons), related to institutions, large establishments, &c. The approximate number of private families in England and Wales was therefore 7,970,660, comprising a population of 34,776,402, and the average number of persons in such families was 4.4. A closer estimate of the number of private families in Urban and Rural Districts is obtainable from the statistics as to "Tenements" (Volume VIII), which show the number of private families in England and Wales as 7,943,137 and the corresponding population as 34,606,173. The close correspondence between these totals shows that the approximate figures may be accepted as very nearly correct for the areas dealt with in Volumes I and II.

Classification of Houses .—In the Report on the census of 1901, it was stated that the satisfactory definition of a house had baffled successive generations of census authorities. In England and Wales a house was defined at the several censuses from 185L to 1901 inclusive as being "all the space within the external and party walls of a building." This definition was adopted by the International Statistical Congress held in London in 1860, and at that date may have been fairly applicable to all but a small number of buildings in this country; such, however, is not now the case, when a large number of families live in dwellings which are not structurally distinct.

Acting on the international definition, the figures relating to houses hitherto published in the census volumes included the following, each reckoned as one house— (a) ordinary dwelling houses and dwellings over shops, (b) houses converted for the occupation of two or more families, (c) maisonettes or double houses, (d) blocks of flats and model dwellings, each block reckoned as one house irrespective of the number of distinct suites of rooms inhabited by separate families, (e) blocks of shops with residences above, (f) hotels, clubs, boarding houses, (g) institutions such as workhouse establishments, hospitals, asylums, barracks, schools, &c., (h) warehouses, offices and business establishments (these only when inhabited by resident caretakers or others).

It is obvious that the statistics hitherto given in the census tables, relating as they do to ''houses" of such widely differing types, lose much of their possible value from the indefinite nature of the material classified. This defect is less serious in the case of the rural areas, where the diversity of type is at its minimum, but the figures for Urban Districts are in many cases very misleading, and wrong inferences have consequently often been drawn from them.

In view therefore of the unsatisfactory character of these returns it was decided on the present occasion to make a new departure. The numbers of families or separate occupiers are given as hitherto for each area of every class dealt with, but returns of buildings have been presented only for Urban and Rural Districts. For these areas, however, the various kinds of buildings are classified in such detail as to do away with the objectionable indefiniteness of the previous returns. Buildings, whether designed for habitation or not, are classified according to their nature, and the population enumerated in each type of building is stated. It is shown for instance how many blocks of flats are contained in a given town, how many separate flats or tenements are contained in these blocks,' and what is the population inhabiting them. These returns constitute the sixth volume relating to population statistics, referred to on page 6.

Density of Population .—The aggregate area of England and Wales, including land and inland water but excluding tidal water and foreshore, is 37,337,537 statute acres, or 58,340 square miles. The total population at the date of the census was 36,070,492, and therefore, assuming even distribution of the population over the entire area, each square mile would have been occupied by 618 persons.

The gradual increase of density of population in this country at each successive census is shown in the subjoined table and diagrams.

DIAGRAM I

Changing population density 1801 to 1911

The last column of the table and Diagram II refer to the distance which would separate each individual inhabitant from his nearest neighbour if all were distributed at equal intervals over the whole surface of the country.

TABLE IV.—DENSITY OF POPULATION, 1801-1911.

DIAGRAM II.—Proximity in Yards of the Population enumerated
in England and Wales at each Census 1801 to 1911.
(Scale 2 inches to One Mile)

Changing population density 1801 to 1911 shown by circles

Subdivisions of the Country .—The country is subdivided for various purposes into a number of local areas of which the population requires separate statement in the Census Report. These purposes may be enumerated as those of (l) local government, (2) the administration of justice, (3) registration of births, deaths and marriages, (4) the government and administration of the Established Church, and (5) parliamentary representation. Speaking generally, the scheme of subdivision differs for each of these purposes, so that the areas for any one of the above purposes do not as a rule coincide with those for any other. There are indeed two independent schemes of subdivision for different purposes of local government, and several for those of the administration of justice, so that the resulting complexity is even greater than would appear from the above statement. On the other hand, one of the two schemes of subdivision for purposes of local government, that, namely, which has been established for the administration of the Poor Law, is almost identical with that in use for registration purposes, so that only two sets of areas for purposes of local government and of registration have to be dealt with. Of these two, those organised for the purposes of local government other than the administration of the Poor Law are referred to as Administrative Areas, and those by which poor relief and registration are dealt with as Registration Areas in this Report, an alternative title for the latter being Poor Law areas.

The population statistics of judicial areas being of minor importance, these are not dealt with in any detail, and the information given with regard to them, which is restricted to that referring to the areas of jurisdiction of county court judges, and of benches of magistrates, is as a matter of convenience embodied in the volume dealing with administrative areas.

The areas dealt with in the Census Report may thus be regarded as o tour main classes. Administrative (including Judicial), Registration (or Poor Law), Ecclesiastical, and Parliamentary. Except in. the latter case, three orders of subdivision, which may be denoted by the letters a, b and c , are represented in each instance. The areas dealt with and their numbers may accordingly be set forth as follows:—

I. Administrative Areas.  
  1. Local Government Areas  
  a. { Administrative Counties 62
County Boroughs1 75
  Administrative Counties are subdivided into  
  b. { Urban Districts, including 1,090 { Metropolitan Boroughs 28
Municipal Boroughs 250
Other Urban Districts 812
Rural Districts 657    
  Urban Districts are sometimes subdivided into  
  c. Municipal Wards,  
  also in some cases into  
  c. Civil Parishes (generally an Urban District forms but one Civil Parish, but sometimes it contains many).  
  Rural Districts are subdivided into  
  a. Civil Parishes.  
  County Boroughs are subdivided into  
  b. Wards of County Boroughs,  
  also in some cases into  
  b. Civil Parishes  
  The total number of Civil Parishes is 14,614, and these include 921 detached parts of certain parishes, which require separate tabulation. The total number of municipal wards, including those of County Boroughs, is 3,296.  
  2. Judicial Areas.  
  a. Petty Sessional Divisions 744
  also  
  a. County Courts Circuits 53
  County Court Circuits are subdivided into  
  b. County Court Districts 495
II. Registration and Poor Law Areas.  
  1. The registration areas include,  
  a. Registration Counties 55
  These are subdivided into  
  b. Registration Districts 635
  These are subdivided into  
  c. Registration Subdistricts 2,009
  (The Subdistricts are formed by aggregation of Civil Parishes.)  
  2. the Poor Law areas include  
  a. Poor Law Unions. These are nearly always identical with Registration Districts and are therefore not separately tabulated. They are subdivided into  
  b. Civil Parishes 14,614
III. Ecclesiastical Areas.  
  a. Ecclesiastical Provinces 2
  These are subdivided into  
  b. Dioceses 37
  These are subdivided into  
  c. { Parishes 14,323
Extra-parochial places 398
IV. Parliamentary Areas.  
  Constituencies. 468

Complexity and overlapping of areas .—It will be seen from the above statement how great is the variety and complexity of the areas for which it has been necessary to collect and present returns Reports on previous censuses have frequently discussed the origin and character of these divisions of the Kingdom, and we shall have occasion to refer briefly to the subject in some of the succeeding sections of this report. But it may be noted here that the legislation of the last thirty years has, in addition to creating many of them, done much to co-ordinate the various units of area treated of in the next section, and has increased their administrative, and therefore their statistical importance, thus, it may be hoped, paving the way for much simplification of statistical treatment in the future. For example under the provisions of the Divided Parishes Act of 1882 numerous detached parts of Civil Parishes were added to the parish by which they were wholly surrounded or with which they had the longest common boundary; by the Local Government Act of 1888 no Urban District could in future be in two Administrative Counties; and by the Local Government Act of 1894 no Civil Parish could be partly in an Urban and partly in a Rural District or in two Administrative Counties. The London Government Act of 1899, which divided the Administrative County of London into 28 Metropolitan Boroughs, provided also "for such improvements and simplification of boundaries as might be expedient for convenience of Administration," but although the parish boundaries were assimilated to those of the newly created Boroughs the parliamentary boundaries remained unchanged. Mention should also be made of the City of London (Union of Parishes) Act of 1907, under which 112 city parishes were amalgamated and became one Civil Parish.

Much, however, still remains to be done in the direction of diminishing the confusion and overlapping of boundaries, and there are still three kinds of Counties, with their constituent parts, the Ancient, the Registration and the Administrative, all of which have to be separately distinguished in the Census Reports.

Ancient or geographical Counties are the basis of the Parliamentary County Divisions as constituted by the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885. These divisions were then formed from. Petty Sessional Divisions of Ancient Counties, and it is probable that had the Administrative Counties existed at that time the parliamentary system would have been brought into line with them.

Registration or Union Counties are aggregations of Poor Law Unions, and as will be seen later the constitution of these unions was determined by considerations of practical convenience without much regard to the ancient county boundaries.

Administrative Counties were created by the Local Government Act of 1888; they number 62, and the boundaries of these modern counties differ in nearly every case from the boundaries not only of the Registration Counties (see page 45), but also' of the Ancient Counties. Several of the Administrative Counties as originally constituted were co-terminous with Ancient Counties, and the differences, generally small in extent, were due chiefly to the fact that by the Act an urban district which was partly in two Counties was deemed to be entirely in the one that contained the greater portion of the population. The differences between these two kinds of County have, however, been much increased by the Act of 1894, which provided that "the whole of each parish, and, unless the County Council for special reasons otherwise direct, the whole of each rural district shall be within the same Administrative County." As the number of cases in which a parish or rural district was situated partly within two or more Ancient Counties was considerable, this provision, wholesome in intention as providing for necessary simplification of the administrative system of areas, had the unfortunate incidental effect of rendering the great majority of Administrative Counties different in some degree from the historical counties of the same name.

The differences between the two kinds of county would have been still greater but for the fact that the requirements of the Act were often met by an alteration of the parish or rural district boundary, the county boundary remaining unaltered.

The differences in boundaries between the three kinds of counties are considerable; in only one case (Cumberland) are the boundaries of all three identical; in three other cases the Administrative County is co-extensive with the Registration County; and in seven other cases the Administrative County is co-extensive with the Parliamentary County. Under the provisions of the Divided Parishes Acts some thousands of changes have been made in the boundaries of Civil Parishes, but in those Acts there is a section expressly declaring that "nothing herein contained shall apply to the Ecclesiastical Divisions of Parishes," so that the differences in the boundaries between

Civil and Ecclesiastical Parishes have been constantly growing, Although a great number of detached parts of Civil Parishes have been amalgamated with those parishes by which they were surrounded or to which they were adjacent, there are, nevertheless, still in existence no fewer than 921 detached parts of Civil Parishes.

A farther complication arises from the changes in parish boundaries in relation to parliamentary areas. The latter were described in the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, as consisting of Petty Sessional Divisions or parts of Petty Sessional Divisions as they existed on January 1st, 1885, but since that Act was passed numbers of the parishes constituting the Petty Sessional Divisions, as also many of the Petty Sessional Divisions themselves, have undergone changes in boundaries, while no corresponding changes have been made in the parliamentary areas.

A few examples will illustrate the existing confusion of boundaries.

  • The Urban Districts of Brownhills, Oakengates, and Spennymoor each extend into three Poor Law Unions.
  • The Poor Law Union of Stamford extends into five Administrative Counties, and comprises one Municipal Borough and four Rural Districts.
  • The Poor Law Union of Crickhowell extends into two Administrative Counties, and comprises one Rural District, one Urban District, and parts of three others.
  • The Parliamentary Borough of the Hartlepools comprises the County Borough of West Hartlepool, part of the Municipal Borough of Hartlepool, and part of the Rural District of Hartlepool.
  • The Civil Parishes of Crosby Ravensworth, Hutton le Hole, Foolow, and Bigge's Quarter, have 14, 12, 8, and 7 detached parts respectively.

The foregoing remarks are sufficient to indicate how complicated the English local boundaries still are, and it can be easily seen how much this complexity adds to the difficulty and labour of taking the census.

Areas not shown in Census Tables .—It has not been possible in the census Tables to show statistics for all the classes of areas into which the country is divided for various purposes. Some of such areas are simply aggregates of divisions for which figures are given; in other cases the boundaries may intersect those of the tabulated areas; and in others the purpose for which the area exists has but little or no connexion with population. The following are examples, but by no means an exhaustive list, of the principal local divisions which are not set out in the Tables:—

Circuits of the High Court.
Lieutenancy sub-divisions.
Coroners Court Districts.
Police Areas.
Joint Districts for Sanitary Purposes.
Burial Board Districts.
Port Sanitary Authorities' areas.
Local Education Authorities' areas.
County Electoral Divisions.
Polling Districts.
Relief Districts.
Parochial Wards.
Archdeaconries.
Deaneries

There are also, in addition to the above, areas defined by Local Acts for the supply of gas, water, and electricity and for drainage purposes; areas defined for special purposes by government departments, as for example, postal divisions, inland revenue districts, and customs ports; and areas of purely local character, such as the Metropolitan Police Court District. The various areas under the control of Docks and Harbour Boards, River Conservators, Fishery Boards and kindred bodies may be cited as examples of divisions of the country for which population statistics would probably be of but little utility, even if it were possible to obtain them.


2. ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS.

Counties .—As units of local government the counties of England are one of the most ancient divisions of the Kingdom. With regard to their origin, the following extract from the Report of the Local Government Boundaries Commission of 1888, maybe of interest: "Reference to the best historical authorities shows that counties in some cases still correspond with the limits of the principalities founded by the early English settlers; in others the principalities have been divided into several shires, or joined so as to form one shire. Kent, Sussex and Essex represent whole kingdoms; whilst there are other counties which represent the under kingdoms of Wessex, or kingdoms sometimes united, sometimes parted, as part of Northumberland and most likely East Anglia For Northumberland again, Yorkshire represents Deira, and the narrower Northumberland represents Bernicia, less the ecclesiastical principality which grew up at Durham.

"The tradition of the division of England or parts of England into shires, probably represents the recognition of pre-existing facts, rather than a process actually accomplished by a particular ruler at a given date. According to Mr. Freeman, the Mercian shires, subsequently to the Danish invasions, were newly mapped out with reference to a central town in each, and the consequent contrast between two such counties as Gloucester and Wiltshire remains to this day. Domesday is the most authentic record of the early-local divisions of England; but clearly shows that some of the existing counties are of a date subsequent to the Conquest, and have been the result either of events forming part of the general growth of the kingdom, or of adjustments coming within the province of local rather than political history.

"Domesday leaves out Northumberland and Durham, although at the time they were certainly existing divisions. Domesday also knows nothing of Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, but in this case because these are divisions later than Domesday, and parts of them, so much of modern Cumberland and Westmorland as was formed into the Earldom of Carlisle, were not then part of England. The shires of Cumberland and Westmorland were made out of the Earldom of Carlisle, with the addition of pieces of Yorkshire. Lancashire was made out of pieces of Yorkshire and of that piece of Cheshire which was somehow separate from the rest, and situated between the Mersey and Ribble.

"The present distribution of territory between Wales and the shires on the border dates from the Act of Henry VIII, abolishing the Lords Marcher. Rutland figures in Domesday, with boundaries even narrower than at the present day, as an outlying portion of Nottingham, the remainder being in Northampton and Lincoln; Gloucestershire includes part of what is now in Monmouth; and Northampton seems to have included portions of what are now in the counties of Warwick, Oxford, Bedford, and Huntingdon. The Domesday survey also contains the evidence of the arbitrary shifting of land, in more than one instance, from the jurisdiction of one county to that of another, to suit the convenience of powerful individuals.

"The history of the question may be summed up by saying that the divisions of Wessex, East Anglia, and Northumberland are immemorial; those of Mercia date from the ninth century; those of the North-West from the twelfth century; and those of the Welsh border from the sixteenth century."

The division of Wales into counties began with the formation of Pembroke as a County Palatine in 1138, and was completed by the above-mentioned Act of Henry VIII, by which Brecknock, Radnor, Montgomery and Denbigh became separate counties. Since that period the county boundaries have remained substantially unchanged the principal alterations being effected in 1844 by an Act to annex detached parts of counties to the counties in which they were situated.

By the Local Government Act of 1888 certain of the powers of the county authorities were transferred to the newly established county councils, and the area of the jurisdiction of these bodies, viz.: the "administrative county" was defined by the Act. Subject to certain provisions it was described as the "county at large as bounded at the passing of this Act for the purpose of the election of members to serve in Parliament for the county." Some of the counties, viz.: Cambridge, Lincoln, Northampton, Suffolk, Sussex and York, were divided into separate administrative counties; and for the purposes of the Act, each of the boroughs specified in a schedule to the Act was made an administrative county of itself. The number of administrative counties (other than county boroughs) so formed was 61, afterwards increased to 62, by the separation of the Isle of Wight from the county of Hants, and, as already stated (page 27), they now differ considerably from the ancient counties. Alterations of county (and county borough) boundaries are still made under the provisions of this Act by order of the Local Government Board, such orders, do not, however, take effect until confirmed by Parliament.

County Boroughs. —Each of the boroughs named in the Third Schedule to the Local Government Act of l888, and thereby created a "county borough" was said to have a population of not less than fifty thousand on the 1st June, 1888, or was a, county of itself. The number of boroughs which thus became separate administrative counties was 61, and included 9 which were found by the census of 1891 to contain fewer than 50,000 inhabitants; six of these—Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, and Worcester—were counties of themselves (i.e., they were entitled to appoint their own sheriffs), while three others—Bootle, Dudley, and Great Yarmouth did not possess that claim to inclusion. There was, on the other hand, one municipal borough (Warrington), which, at the census of 1891 had more than 50,000 inhabitants, but was riot among the original county boroughs. Between the passing of the Act of 1888 and the census of 1911, the number of county boroughs was increased to 75, all but five of which contained at the latter date more than 50,000 persons, the exceptions being the cities of Canterbury, Chester, Exeter and Worcester, and the borough of Burton-upon-Trent, the last-named having fallen below the population limit since its creation as a county borough in 1901. The list of towns given in Table IX shows that in 1911 there were 14 municipal boroughs and 12 other urban districts with more than 50,000 population which had not become county boroughs.

Municipal Boroughs .—The Municipal Boroughs appear to have been developed from the old Saxon division of "Hundreds." Some of them are mentioned in Domesday Book, but from time to time new boroughs were created, generally by Royal Charter of incorporation, and when the Commissioners appointed in 1834 to enquire as to the existing state of Municipal Corporations in England and Wales" endeavoured to ascertain the number of such corporations they were unable to find any correct list extant. From various local sources of information, however, they found reason to believe that there were 246 corporations possessing or exercising municipal functions, and when the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 was passed, 178 of these were brought within its scope. The remainder (except the City of London which was dealt with separately) were not affected until, by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1883, they were either re-incorporated or their corporations were dissolved. Subsequent to the passing of the Act of 1835, which effected a general reform of the rights and usages of the corporations with which it dealt, many other acts having reference to municipal corporations received the Royal Assent, until in 1882 an Act was passed for consolidating, with amendments, enactments relating to municipal corporations in England and Wales. This Act, under which the municipalities are now governed, provides for the, creation of municipal boroughs by Royal Charter, and the total number of boroughs to which the Municipal Corporations Act applied at the date of the Census was 324 (inclusive of the 75 county boroughs). Alterations of the boundaries of boroughs may be effected by provisional order of-the Local Government Board, subject to confirmation by Parliament.

Other Urban Districts .—In addition to the boroughs specified above there are many other towns which have defined limits but have not been incorporated as boroughs. These towns of which the boundaries had been settled under the Public Health Act of 1848, the Local Government Act of 1858, and various acts for local purposes were known as Local Government districts, or Improvement Act districts. By the Public Health Act of 1875 the whole of England and Wales except the Metropolis was divided into two classes of districts—

  1. Urban Sanitary Districts.
  2. Rural Sanitary Districts.

The former comprised all boroughs, local government districts and improvement act districts, and for most purposes of local government the administration of these areas was vested in a local authority called the urban sanitary authority. These authorities were in a later Act (1894) named urban district councils and the areas were called urban districts. Considerable alterations in the boundaries of existing urban districts, and the formation of many new urban districts, have since been made, under the provisions of the Local Government Act of 1888, by orders of the county councils, subject to confirmation by the Local Government Board. By that Act any urban district which was partly in two or more administrative counties was deemed to be within that county which contained the largest portion of the population of the district.

Rural Districts. —These districts were first brought into existence by the Public Health Act of 1875, which specified that "the area of any union which is not co-incident in area with an urban district, nor wholly included in an urban district . . . . . with the exception of those portions (if any) which are included in any urban district, shall be a rural district." These rural districts were not modified to any great extent— except so tar as their area was, on the whole, reduced by the creation or extension of urban districts—until after the passing of the Local Government Act, 1894. This Act as already stated (page 27), required that each rural district, except under certain conditions should be within the same Administrative County, and as the were many cases' in which a rural district was in more than one county (the report on the Census of 1391. showed 172 such cases), the effect of this provision has been to alter the boundaries of a large number o the rural districts, and, in a few cases, to alter the boundaries of the administrative counties There are, however, still nine rural districts, viz.:—. Faringdon, Holsworthy, Oundle, Stow on the Wold Tamworth Tetbury, Tewkesbury, Thrapston, and Winchcomb, which are not entirely within one administrative county, while in ten other cases the affairs of a rural district in one county are temporarily administered by the council of a rural district in an adjoining county.

The Metropolis .—The City of London has been a borough from very early times and its area has, with a few unimportant exceptions, remained unaltered for centuries As already stated, London was not brought within the scope of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. At that time, the governing bodies of the metropolis (outside the City) were the Vestries and the Commissioners under Local Acts for Lighting, Paving, &c.; the Poor Laws were also administered under Local Acts. The position of the metropolitan area was regulated by the Metropolis Management Act of 1855 which established the Metropolitan Board of Works, and Local Board of Works Districts, and made uniform the position of the Vestries. The Local Government Act of 1888 substituted the London County Council for the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London Government Act of 1899 replaced the Vestries and local Boards of Works by the Metropolitan Borough Councils; the position of the City of London, which for some purposes, such as main drainage, now forms part of the County of London, has yet remained substantially unaltered. The Poor Law administration of London was brought into line with the general system by the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867.

Petty Sessional Divisions .—These Divisions, many of which had already been customarily observed, were constituted or defined by justices of the peace at Quarter Sessions in pursuance of an Act of 1828 (9 Geo. IV, cap. 43), and consisted of the parishes, tithings, townships and places which "in the opinion of such justices would together form a convenient and proper division within, and for which special sessions should thenceforward be held." Such divisions were, except in special cases, to remain fixed for twenty-one years after the date of their formation. In order, however, to bring petty sessional divisions into relation with the poor law unions formed in 1834, the justices at quarter sessions were empowered by an Act in 1836 (6 Will. IV, cap. 12) to alter the boundaries of the divisions after three years from the date of their formation. Boundaries of Petty Sessional Divisions are still subject to alteration, and such alterations, -which in some cases are made by order of a Court of Quarter Sessions, are not required to be notified to any central authority. For the present constitution of these Divisions we have, therefore, relied on information furnished by Clerks of the Peace and other local authorities to the Ordnance Survey Department, and courteously placed at our disposal; this information has also been submitted to the Home Office for verification, and we are much indebted to that Department for assistance in this matter. In most cases a Petty Sessional Division comprises entire civil parishes, but there are nearly fifty parishes which extend into more than one Petty Sessional Division.

County Court Districts and Circuits .—The only judicial areas in addition to Petty Sessional Divisions, for which population statistics are given in the census tables, are the County Court Districts, and the aggregates of these districts which form County Court Ciruits. The present boundaries of County Court Districts have in the main been determined by Orders in Council issued under the County Courts Act, 1888. The districts are based on the Poor Law Unions, but in the majority of cases they comprise parts of Unions. It is also provided in the Order in Council of 7th March, 1899, that (1) detached parts of parishes shall be taken to be within the Court District by which they are surrounded, or with which they have the greatest common boundary and (2) the boundaries of parishes shall be as constituted on 1st March, 1898. Owing to these provisions there is a considerable number of cases in which a civil parish, as now constituted, is in more than one County Court District. A further difficulty arises in the case of London by the indefinite postponement of the Order in Council referred to so far as it relates to the metropolis. As a result of this postponement the metropolitan districts remain largely as they were originally established in 1847, and without any modification later than 1871. The old descriptions of boundaries are in many cases very obscure as applied to present conditions, and it was ,necessary to refer some doubtful points to the County Courts Department of H.M Treasury; the London County Courts Directory issued by that Department has been found useful in this connexion.

Changes in Administrative Areas since 1901 —In the past intercensal period, numerous changes were made in the boundaries of the 1.4,614 Civil Parishes which appear in the present census tables. No fewer than 70 parishes were created, 348 were absorbed in other parishes, and 332 underwent changes of area between 1901 and 1911.

The number of Urban Districts created in the intercensal period was 44, and the number dissolved or merged in other Urban Districts 29, raising the number at the census of 1911 to 1,137,2 of which 112 underwent change of area. The boundaries of Rural Districts were considerably, altered by these changes in the boundaries of Urban Districts.

Charters of Incorporation were granted to 12 Urban Districts during the intercensal period, and nine new County Boroughs were created, viz.:—Blackpool (1904), Eastbourne (1911), Merthyr Tydfil (1907), Rotherham (1902), Smethwick (1906), Southport (1905), Stoke on Trent (1910), Tynemouth (1904) and West Hartlepool (1.902); on the other hand Hanley has ceased to exist as a separate County Borough, having been merged in the new borough of Stoke on Trent. The creation of new county boroughs and the extension of existing boroughs has reduced the area of 1 3 of the administrative counties, and in four other cases the county boundaries have been altered.

The number of alterations in the constitution of wards of boroughs and other urban districts has been very considerable, but as no means were available during the intercensal period for ascertaining the nature of all of these changes it was found to be impracticable to publish comparative figures for the present areas.

Population and Rates of Increase or Decrease in County Areas .—The following diagram (Diagram III) shows for each of the 62 Administrative Counties (inclusive of the associated County Boroughs) what proportion it contained of the total population of the whole country, and brings out very clearly the relative insignificance—as regards population—of some of the smaller of these areas. Thus, comparing the extremes, it is seen that the population of Rutlandshire was less than one two-hundredth part of that of Lancashire. It is also interesting to note that the latter county now contains a population exceeding that of the Administrative County of London, though at all the earlier Censuses the reverse was the case.

DIAGRAM III.—Proportion of population in each Administrative County (with associated County
Boroughs) to the total population in England and Wales, 1911.

County populations as proportions of national total, 1911

Table 6 of the Summary Volume shows how the rates of increase of population in the two periods, 1891-1901 and 1901-1911, were distributed over the whole country, and gives the figures both for the administrative counties proper and the individual county boroughs, as well as for the counties, inclusive of the associated county boroughs; for those cases in which the ancient county was divided for administrative purposes, viz., Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Suffolk, and Sussex, figures are also given for the administrative aggregates corresponding to the ancient county. The following comparisons relate to the counties inclusive of the county boroughs. In three of the English counties — —London, Cumberland, and Westmorland—and in five of the "Welsh counties— Carnarvonshire, Cardiganshire, Radnorshire,3 Montgomeryshire, and Merionethshire— a decrease in population was recorded in the intercensal period 1901-1911. Of the counties showing decreases between 1901 and 1911 four—Westmorland, Cardiganshire, Montgomeryshire, and Merionethshire—bad also declined between 1891 and 1901.

Increases of population occurred in all the counties surrounding or adjacent to the metropolis, viz.:—

Metropolitan Counties. Increase per cent. in Populations in
Intercensal Periods.
1891-1901. 1901-1911.
Middlesex 45.9 42.1
Surrey 25.3 29.4
Essex 38.4 24.6
Hertfordshire 14.1 20.5
Kent 15.7 8.8

The rate of overflow from the metropolitan area into the neighbouring counties Was maintained or accelerated in all directions except eastwards, where a notable Reduction is manifest.

It will be of interest to compare the rate of growth of population in the counties which, broadly speaking, are mainly commercial and industrial in character, and the rate in the counties of an agriculture character.

Excluding from the comparison the metropolitan counties, the following 19 counties (with an aggregate population at the census of 1901 of 17,207,494 and at the last census of 19,302,509) may be taken as typically commercial and industrial in character, i.e ., counties in which over 60 per cent. Of the male population aged ten years and upwards was engaged in commercial and industrial occupations at the census of 1911.

Commercial and Industrial
Counties.
Increase or Decrease per cent. in Population
in Intercensal Periods.
1891-1901. 1901-1911.
Monmouthshire 15.5 32.8
Glamorganshire 21.1 30.3
Carmarthenshire 3.6 18.5
Nottinghamshire 15.4 17.4
Worcestershire 17.5 16.2
Northumberland 19.2 15.5
Durham 16.8 15.4
Cheshire 11.4 14.2
Derbyshire 16.4 14.0
Flintshire 5.8 13.8
Warwickshire 12.2 10.6
Yorkshire—    
  East Riding 12.7 12.4
  North Riding 4.9 11.2
  West Riding 12.7 10.3
Staffordshire 13.9 9.0
Lancashire 12.3 8.9
Leicestershire 16.3 8.9
Gloucestershire 8.2 3.9
Northamptonshire 12.0 3.8
Aggregate of 19 Counties     13.6 12.2

It will be seen that of the counties in which mining is the leading industry, Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire show accelerated rates while Northumberland, Durham and Derbyshire show reduced rates of increase. Nottinghamshire Cheshire and Flintshire each increased their growth, but in many other counties the increases, while still substantial, are less than in the previous ten years; Leicestershire, for instance, reduced its rate from 16.3 to 8.9, and Northamptonshire from 12.0 to 3.8, Staffordshire from 13.9 to 9.0, Lancashire from 12.3 to 8.9.

In the following 211 counties (with an aggregate population at the 1901 census of 3,586,960 and at the date of the last census of 3,793,645), in which agriculture was returned as the occupation of more than one-fifth of the male population over ten years of age, the rates of growth of population were as follows:—

Agricultural Counties. Increase ( + ) or
Decrease ( - ) per cent. in
Intercensal Periods.
Agricultural Counties. Increase ( + ) or
Decrease ( - ) per cent. in
Intercensal Periods.
1891-1901. 1901-1911. 1891-1901. 1901-1911.
England     England —contd.—    
  Lincolnshire 5.5 12.8   Herefordshire -1.4 0.1
  Buckinghamshire 5.6 11.4   Westmorland -2.7 -1.3
  Dorsetshire 4.4 10.5 Wales    
  Cambridgeshire 0.4 7.2   Brecknockshire 5.5 9.4
  Oxfordshire -1.6 6.9   Pembrokeshire -0.5 2.4
  Wiltshire 3.4 5.7   Anglesey 1.0 0.6
  Suffolk 3.1 5.5   Cardiganshire -3.8 -2.0
  Norfolk 1.7 4.7   Montgomeryshire -5.3 -3.2
  Rutlandshire -4.6 -3.2   Radnorshire* 6.8 -3.0
  Shropshire 1.2 2.7   Merionethshire 0.0 -6.7
  Huntingdonshire -1.6 2.7      
  Cornwall -0.1 1.8 Aggregate of 21 Counties  1.9 6.2

The rates of increase or decrease for the ten counties not included in any of the three foregoing lists were as follows:—

  Increase (+) or
Decrease (-) per cent. in
Population in
Intercensal Periods.
  Increase (+) or
Decrease (-) per cent. in
Population in
Intercensal Periods.
1891-1901 1901-1911 1891-1901 1901-1911
Hampshire + 15.5 + 18.9 Devonshire + 4.6 + 5.7
Bedfordshire + 6.4 + 13.3 Somersetshire + 1.1 + 5.3
Sussex + 10 + 10.1 London + 7.3 - 0.3
Denbighshire + 10.6 + 10 Cumberland + 0.1 - 0.4
Berkshire + 6.9 + 7.3 Carnarvonshire + 6.9 - 0.5

The increased rate of growth of population in the agricultural counties, accompanied as it has been by a reduction in the rate of increase shown in industrial counties as a whole—counties, however; in which there was generally less room for expansion is a remarkable feature of the present census. How far the acceleration shown in the aggregate of the agricultural counties may be due to the growth of industries in those counties, how far to agricultural development and prosperity, how far again the increase may he, in the outer suburban districts of the towns, purely residential in character, are questions, however, upon which some further light has been thrown in the case of certain rural parishes by inquiries made through the local registration officers. The results of these inquiries are described in the section dealing with the increase of population in Rural Districts (page 38).

Density of Population in Counties. —The following table shows the density of population in each of the county areas, that is, the administrative counties inclusive of the associated county boroughs, in 1901 and 1911.

TABLE V.—DENSITY OF POPULATION IN COUNTIES, 1901 AND 1911.

DIAGRAM IV.—Number of Persons per Square Mile in each Administrative County (together with
associated County Boroughs), 1911.

Note. —The thick horizontal line represents the average density in England and Wales as a whole—viz., 618 persons per square mile. To represent the density of London on this scale (viz., 38,680 persons per square mile) would require a column nearly eight times as high as that representing Middlesex.

graph of population density in each county

The comparative density of population in the several areas is also indicated in Diagram IV, except in the case of London where the figures (38,680 persons to the square mile) is too great to be shown conveniently on the sane scale as the other counties. The geographical distribution of the population of various degrees of density, and of the increase or decrease of density, is shown by counties in the maps facing this page.

MAP 1.—Density of Population in Administrative Counties
(with associated County Boroughs.)

map of population density by county

MAP 2.—Increase in Density of Population in Administrative Counties
(with associated County Boroughs.)

map of population density by county

DIAGRAM V

Graph showing urban/rural ratio 1851 to 1911

It is hoped to publish separately a map for the whole of England and Wales showing the density of the population based on the individual figures for the 14,000 Civil parishes, which will show more accurately the distribution of the population than is possible in the map showing the density based on the figures for the whole county.

Urban and Rural Districts. —So many changes have taken place from time to time in the boundaries of Urban and Rural Districts that t is impossible in many cases to ascertain what was the precise population of a given area at previous censuses. If, however, we take the Urban and Rural Districts as constituted at each of the seven past censuses we are able to show by the following table the increasing predominance of the urban as compared with the rural element in the population:—

TABLE VI.—PROPORTION PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENUMERATED IN URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS RESPECTIVELY, AT EACH CENSUS 1851 TO 1911.

It will be noted from the above statement that while in 1851 the numbers of persons living under urban and rural conditions were, broadly speaking, evenly divided, in 1911 no less than 78 per cent of the population were living under urban, and only 22 per cent. under rural conditions.

If, however, small towns with populations not exceeding 5,000 are included with the rural areas in this comparison, the proportion of the population assumed to be living under rural conditions rises to 25.3 per cent.; and if the limit of population is taken at 10,000, to 30.3 per cent.

It should be mentioned that the increase in the proportion of the population resident in Urban Districts, although mainly due to an actual growth of the population within those areas as existing in the earlier census years, is also partly to be accounted for by the extension of those areas themselves owing to the absorption of areas which were previously rural.

Tables 8-10 of Volume I show the populations in 1901 and 1911 of each of the 1,137 Urban Districts (including County and Municipal Boroughs) with their constituent Civil Parishes and Wards, and of each of the 657 Rural Districts with their constituent Civil Parishes. The aggregate population in 1901 and 1911 of these areas As constituted at the latter date, were as follows:—

  POPULATION. Increase per cent.
in Population
between
1901 and 1911.
1901. 1911.
England and Wales 32,527,843 36,070,492 10.9
Total of 1,137* Urban Districts as constituted in 1911 25,351,118 28,162,936 11.1
Total of 657 Rural Districts as constituted in 1911 7,176,725 7,907,558 10.2

In the preceding intercensal period the rates of increase in the Urban and Rural Districts (as constituted in 1901) had been 15.2 and 2.9 per cent, respectively. Thus, while the rate of increase in Urban Districts has declined from 15.2 to 11.1 per cent., the rate of increase in Rural Districts has risen from 2.9 to 10.2 per cent. It should be pointed out, however, that the rates in the last decennium represent an actual increase of 2,811,818 persons in the Urban, and of only 730,831 persons in the Rural Districts.

At the date of the issue of the Report on the census of 1891 there were 1,011 Urban Districts; at the census of 1901 the number had increased to 1,122, and in 1911 to 1,137; these 1,137 districts maybe grouped by the numbers of their populations as shown in the following table, which gives the populations of the areas as constituted in 1911:—

TABLE VII.—POPULATION OF URBAN DISTRICTS GROUPED BY THE NUMBERS OF THEIR POPULATION, 1911.

Diagram VI shows for each county the proportion of the population enumerated in Urban Districts distinguished in three groups, viz., those of over 50,000 inhabitants, those of 20,000 to 50,000, and those of under 20,000 respectively—and in Rural Districts.

DIAGRAM VI.—Proportion per cent. of the Population of each Administrative County (together with associated County Boroughs) living in Urban Districts (1) of over 50,000 inhabitants, (2) of 20,000 and under 50,000 inhabitants, (3) of under 20,000 inhabitants, and (4) in Rural Districts.

Note. —The actual proportion in these four classes of areas are shown below the diagram.

Proportions of county populations in different sized towns

In order to show in what parts of the country the increase in rural population has occurred the following table has been constructed; in the first column the increase or decrease per cent, of population is given in the aggregate Rural Districts of each Administrative County, in the second column a similar calculation is made with the line drawn at Urban Districts of less than 5,000 inhabitants, and in the third column with Urban Districts of less than 10,000 inhabitants.

TABLE VIII.—INCREASE OR DECREASE PERCENT, OF POPULATIONS, 1901-1911, OF RURAL AREAS IN EACH ADMINSTRATIVE COUNTY.

Nine counties show a decrease in the population enumerated in their Rural Districts, while if the towns with less than 10,000 population are included with the Rural areas the number rises to ten, Cornwall disappearing from the list and Cumberland and Anglesey being added to it. Of these ten, six are Welsh and four are English, and all are numerically insignificant, for their aggregate population amounted only to 917,646. All except two (Radnorshire4 and Carnarvonshire) showed declining populations in the previous intercensal period, but the rates of decrease in 1891-1901 were, except in the case of Merionethshire, considerably in excess of the rates in 1901-11. A similar list given in the Report on the 1901 census included 23 counties.

Another method by which we may examine the changes in the rural population is that of taking the Registration Districts or Poor Law Unions which are still entirely rural, that is to say, districts which contain absolutely no Urban Districts, or parts of Urban Districts, however small. Amongst the 635 Registration Districts there are 105 which at the census of 1911 were entirely rural, and the aggregate population of which was 1,306,471. Their population at each census back to 1801 has been approximately ascertained as follows:—

Census Year. Population. Increase ( + ) or
Decrease ( - )
per cent.
in intercensal
Period.
Census Year. Population. Increase ( + ) or
Decrease ( - )
per cent.
in intercensal
Period.
1801 852,313 1861 1,207,580 -0.41
1811 913,713 7.20 1811 1,202,499 -0.42
1821 1,044,331 14.30 1881 1,187,124 -1.28
1831 1,115,641 6.83 1891 1,174,958 -1.02
1841 1,181,758 5.93 1901 1,189,713 1.26
1851 1,212,548 2.61 1911 1,306,471 9.81

It will be observed from the above table that the decrease of population in these Rural Districts, which first manifested itself in the ten years 1851-61, continue until the last two decennia, during which there was a notable change. But, although in the last intercensal period a considerable increase of population is shown in these rural areas in the aggregate, there has, nevertheless, been a considerable drain on their natural growth of population. This will be evident from the following table, in which to the purely Rural Districts are added Registration Districts which contain only such Urban Districts as have populations of less than 10,000:—

  Population. Increase of
Population.
Excess of
Births over
Deaths.
Loss by
Migration.*
Loss by
Migration*
per cent.
Gain per
cent. by
Excess of
Births over
Deaths, or
Natural
Increase.
1901. 1911.
105 Registration Districts entirely rural 1,189,713 1,306,471 116,758 127,420 -10,662 -0.9 9.8
230 Registration Districts containing Urban Districts under 10,000 population only 4,151,562 4,379,134 227,572 393,764 -166,192 -4.0 9.0
Total of 335 Registration Districts 5,341,275 5,685,605 344,330 521,184 -176,854 -3.3 9.2
Remainder of England and Wales 27,186,568 30,384,887 3,198,319 3,523,463 -325,144 -1.2 11.6

* The term migration here includes movement of population between the districts in question and the remainder of England and Wales as well as migration to or from foreign parts. The loss by migration is arrived at by the deduction of actual from natural increase of population.

Thus, in this rural population of over five and a half millions, the natural growth of the population by excess of births over deaths was, in the ten years preceding the census of 1911, 521,184, whereas the actual increase of population was only 344,330, the loss by migration being 176,854, equal to 3.3 per cent, of the population of 1901.

Some interesting information as to the probable causes of growth of population in rural areas has been obtained as the result of an inquiry addressed to the registrars with respect to the rural parishes showing the largest increases of populations. They were asked to say to what causes they attributed the growth of population, and their replies have been summarized as follows:—

No. of
Parishes.
Reported causes of Increase in Population. Population. Increase of
Population in
Intercensal
Period.
1901. 1911.
16 Agricultural Development, Small Holdings, Fruit
  Farming, Market Gardening, &c.
10,860 15,639 4,779
296 Residential Development, owing to proximity to
  towns, increased travelling facilities, &c.
418,808 656,501 237,693
142 Colliery Development 292,455 493,816 201,361
58 Manufacturing Development 96,575 149,589 53,014
59 Erection of lnstitutions 61,005 107,548 46,543
10 Miscellaneous 8,863 14,624 5,761
581   888,566 1,437,717 549,151

From the above analysis it will be seen that in 581 rural parishes the aggregate increase in population amounted to 549,151, and that of this increase less than one per cent, is stated to be due to agricultural development, while 46 per cent, is stated to be due to mining and manufacturing development, 43 per cent, to residential development, owing to the proximity to large towns, increased travelling facilities, &c., and 8 per cent, to the erection of institutions in rural parishes. The above inquiry has dealt, though naturally in a summary fashion, with a large proportion of the increase in the rural population, for the increase in the aggregate of the 657 Rural Districts in England and Wales amounted to only 730,831 in the last intercensal period (see page 36), and the results tabulated above appear to show that the growth is due much more largely to Residential and industrial development than to any change in agricultural conditions.

It must be borne in mind, however, that as the nature of the inquiry limited it to causes capable of causing rapid growth in small areas (parishes), purely agricultural development could not in the nature of things be expected to figure prominently amongst the causes assigned, and would probably have very much more importance in accounting for the small balance of increase in the rural population at large. Indeed, as is shown in Table XXXVIII, page 116, the proportion of the population engaged in agriculture in the Rural Districts of the seven counties which are most completely agricultural in character (i.e., those in which the number of males so engaged exceeded 3.0 per cent, of the male population) did in every case show an increase.

London and the Great Towns .—Among the 1,137 Urban Districts are 97 (including London as one district), each of which had in 1911 a population exceeding 50,000. In the following table these towns are arranged in the order of their populations in 1911, All the population figures relate to the towns as constituted in 1911.

TABLE IX.—POPULATION, 1891, 1901 AND 1911, IN THE 97 TOWNS WITH POPULATIONS EXCEEDING 50,000 PERSONS, ARRANGED IN THE ORDER OF THEIR POPULATIONS IN 1911.

Of these 97 towns 52 showed increases in excess of 10 per cent., the largest increases being in Southend on Sea (117.3), Ilford (89.6), Ealing (85.3), Acton (52.3), Coventry (52.0), Wallasey (46.5), and King's Norton and Northfield (42.1). A number Of the towns showing the largest increases are included in "Great London," and Of the towns showing the largest

A remarkable feature of the table is the decline in the rate of growth as compared with that in the ten years from 1891 to 1901. The population of the 97 towns in the aggregate increased in the period 1901-1911 by 8.3 per cent, as compared with 15.3 in the preceding period. In the case of 18 towns only was the rate of increase higher in the second period; of these Coventry and Swansea are striking examples. On the other hand, West Hartlepool, Plymouth, Reading, East Ham, Walthamstow, and Ilford are prominent instances of the prevalent tendency. The rate of growth during the fifty years 1801-1911 is shown for the largest of the County Boroughs in Diagram VII.

DIAGRAM VII.—Growth of Population, 1861-1911, in each County Borough of which the Population exceeded 250,000 in 1911.

Note. —Population added by extension of boundary is indicated by the dotted portions of the columns. These portions in each case represent the population of the added area at the census last preceding the extension of boundary.

growth of population 1861 to 1911 in large towns

It is obvious that a falling-off in the rate of increase, or even an actual diminution of the population Resident within the limits of a town, does not necessarily imply any corresponding decline in its prosperity. Unless the boundaries of the town are periodically adjusted, the relation between its area and its population must constantly alter as the latter increases. Thus, as the population resident within the boundaries of the town approaches more and more nearly that density which under the local circumstances may be regarded as the point of saturation, the tendency is for further increase to slacken within, and probably to accelerate without, the town limits, simply because there is less and less room left within for new buildings. This tendency has been markedly accentuated in the past decennium by the provision of improved means of transportation, enabling the city worker to enjoy the advantages of residence outside the city limits. If at the same time overcrowded slum areas are rebuilt with more generous provision of light and air, and if residences are, owing to increasing site value, replaced by railways, warehouses and business premises in the central portion of the town, it may well be that even an actual decrease in population represents not decrease, but increase of the town's prosperity. The growth of large urban communities can only be measured by considering jointly the population of the central area and of all its suburbs, whether the latter do or do not happen to be under the same local government as the central area.

The cases of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester illustrate this. The population of the city of Birmingham, as constituted at the date of the census of. 1911, was 525,833, an increase of 0.5 per cent, on the numbers returned at the census of 1901. Since the taking of the census, the area of the city has been extended, and the population of the whole of the area now included within the new city amounts to 840,202; at the census of 1901, 759,063 persons were enumerated within the same area. The rate of increase within the limits of the city as extended is therefore 107 per cent.

The population of the City of Liverpool, as constituted at the date of the census of 1911, was 746,421, an increase of 6.0 per cent, on the numbers returned at the enumeration of 1901. Within an area comprising the City of Liverpool, the County Boroughs of Bootle and Birkenhead, the Municipal Borough of Wallasey, the Urban Districts of Litherland, Waterloo with Seaforth, Great Crosby, Little Crosby, Higher Bebington, and Lower Bebington, and the Civil Parish of West Derby Rural, no fewer than 1,095,344 persons were enumerated, showing an increase of 112,612 in the decennium, or 11.5 per cent., nearly double the rate recorded for the city alone.

During the past intercensal period, the City of Manchester had been extended by the addition of the Urban Districts of Moss Side, Withington, Gorton, and Levenshulme, and part of Prestwich. The population of the city as constituted in 1911 was 714,333; this total shows an increase of 69,4,60, or 10-8 per cent, on the numbers returned at the preceding census. If, however, we take the city boundaries as constituted in 1901, the increase of population in the past intercensal period amounted to only 24,699 persons, or 4.5 per cent.

London .—Reference to table 23 of Vol I will show that the population of the area now covered by the Adminstrative County of London had increased in the 100 Years 1801—1901 from 959,310 to 4,536,267. The population enumerated at the census of 1911 numbered 4,521,685, showing for the first time an actual decrease.

In the decennium 1871-1881 the rate of increase had been 17.4 per cent, in decenium 1881-1891 it fell to 10.4 per cent., in the decennium 1891-1901 it further fell to 7.3 per cent., and in the last intercensal period an actual decrease of 0.3 per cent, took place. Table X shows the population enumerated at the three past censuses in the Administrative County of London, in each Metropolitan Borough and in the City of London; and also the rates of increase and decrease in the two intercensal periods. The figures for 1891 and 1901 relate to the Boroughs-as constituted in 1911.

London furnishes the most remarkable instance of decline of population in the central portions of large cities. Attention has been drawn in previous census reports to the gradual decentralisation of its population: it was pointed out, that in the centre of London was a group of districts in which the population had long been decreasing, owing to the substitution of business premises, warehouses, &c., for dwelling-houses, that around this central area was a circle of districts the population of which was increasing, the increase, generally speaking, being more marked in the districts furthest removed from the centre, and that outside the County of London was a zone of suburban districts in which the population was increasing with extraordinary rapidity.

The process of decentralisation, which at first affected the inner districts of London only, has gradually affected a much wider area until in 1911 only nine of the 28 Metropolitan Boroughs show an increase of population, These Boroughs, which it will be seen are mainly those farthest removed from the centre, are (Camberwell, Fulham, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Lewisham, Wandsworth, and Woolwich.

TABLE X.—METROPOLITAN BOROUGHS.—POPULATION 1891, 1901 AND 1911, AND INCREASE OR DECREASE PER CENT

*The City of London comprises an area of 675 acres, which is mainly covered by buildings used for business and not for residential purposes. The census included those persons only who passed the night of the census within the city boundaries and did not take account of the citizens engaged in the city in the daytime. It has been customary for the County Purposes Committee of the Corporation to supplement the ordinary census by the taking of a special day census. This special census took place on this occasion on 25th April, 1911, and the returns showed that 364,061 persons were engaged in the day time within the "walls and liberties" of the city.

Greater London and the Outer Ring.—" Greater London" is a term used to describe the area covered by the Metropolitan and City of London Police Districts it contains besides the Administrative County of London, a wide belt of suburban towns and districts, designated for convenience the "Outer King." It will be seen from the subjoined table that the inhabitants of Greater London now exceed seven and a quarter millions, and although the growth in the decennium 1901-1911 was less than in the preceding decennia, it amounted to nearly 670,000 persons, or 10.2 per cent.

In the Outer Ring the increase of population had been about 50 per cent, in each of the three intercensal periods between 1861 and 1891, and 45 per cent, in the period 1891-1901. In the last intercensal period it fell to 33 per cent.; this, however, represents a numerical addition of 684,538 persons, an addition greater than that in any previous intercensal period, and considerably more than the entire population of the Outer King fifty years ago.

TABLE XI.—"GREATER LONDON."—POPULATION AT EACH CENSUS 1861 TO 1911


3. REGISTRATION AREAS

The Parish. —In the introduction to the General Reports of the Censuses of 1901 and of various earlier Censuses, notably that of 1851, will be found accounts of the manner in which the more important local government areas came into existence, tog-ether with references to various Acts of Parliament concerned with their formation or" development, from the famous Statute of Elizabeth (43 Eliz. c. 2), which legally established the (ancient) parish as the basis of Poor Law administration, down to the Local Government Act of 1894, which completed the organization of local government as we know it today and which partially restored the importance of the-(civil) parish as the primary unit of general local administration. The modern civil parish, which has been defined in several Acts of Parliament as, in the words of the Interpretation Act, 1889, "a place for which a separate poor rate is, or can be, made, or for which a separate overseer is, or can be, appointed" and which is the unit, not only of the poor law system, bat also of the recently reorganized administrative system and therefore has a place in the tables relating to both, is the outcome of a series of enactments which, for the purposes of civil administration, have altered the boundaries of a very large proportion of the ancient parishes, while at the same time, especially in the north of England, subdividing many of them.

At the commencement of the 19th century England and Wales untamed about 10,000 parishes. These were generally units for both civil and ecclesiastical purposes, except that in Wales and the northern counties they were very commonly divided into townships" for poor-law and other civil purposes. The identity, of civil and ecclesiastical parishes was not, however, universal. The division of the inhabited parts of the country into parishes appears to have been completed about the time of Edward III. These "ancient parishes" continued in most cases to serve the, purposes of both civil and ecclesiastical administration (which were much less sharply differentiated than at the present time) down to the beginning of the last century, but, subdivisions and amalgamations appear to have been made or recognized from time to time by the ecclesiastical authorities, and it depended upon particular legal decisions whether these re-arrangements affected the parish as an area of civil government. The boundaries and even the numbers of parishes were very imperfectly ascertained and at times of litigation, but it eventually became settled that ecclesiastical rearrangements were inoperative for civil purposes. The number tended to increase by subdivision until from about 9,000, which, are estimated to have been in existence at the revolution of 1688, it had grown to 10,693 "parishes and parochial chapelries" (ecclesiastical subdivisions of the parish, which, if of ancient date, might be civil units also) at the Census of 1821. The townships of the northern counties were not separately included in this total, and the first Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners states that there were, in 1835, "15,635 parishes or places separately relieving their own paupers." These "places," however, which would be included under the legal definition of a civil parish at the present time, were regarded only as civil subdivisions of the parish.

During the nineteenth century the subdivision of the parish went on at an increased rate, and many changes of boundary were made, both for ecclesiastical and civil purposes, but so often independently in the two cases that at the present time civil and ecclesiastical parishes are co-terminous only in a minority of instances.

The townships of the north have now become civil parishes under the following circumstances. The ancient parishes in the northern counties were of great extent, having been formed apparently by the aggregation of a number of the still more ancient townships of early Saxon times, whereas in the south and midlands each township generally became a single parish. It may be, as has often been suggested, that this difference in treatment was due to greater density of population in the south, but it seems not unlikely that the principle of subdivision may have been different in the case of the northern counties (see Census Report, 1851, pp. lxiii and lxiv). After the administration of the Poor Law had been entrusted to the parish by the Act of Elizabeth, the large size of these northern parishes was found to occasion much inconvenience, and an Act of 13 Charles II therefore permitted separate townships forming parts of parishes "severally to maintain their own poor." During the course of the nineteenth century it has become customary in the census reports to refer to these northern townships as civil parishes in accordance with the definition of the Interpretation Act. It will be seen, however, that the change is one purely of nomenclature and does not imply any alteration of administrative function.

The report on the Census of 1871, as well as that of 1881, in dealing with these subdivided parishes, grouped "Civil Parishes or Townships" under the ancient parishes of which they formed portions, but in subsequent census reports the townships are enumerated as civil parishes, and no reference is made to the ancient parish as a civil area. The reason for its disappearance may perhaps be found in the fact that, after the abolition of compulsory church rates in 1868, the ancient parish ceased to be of importance as an instrument of local government.

Subdivision of these large northern parishes, as well as of many "others, was also made for ecclesiastical purposes during the nineteenth century, some thousands of new ecclesiastical parishes (at first spoken of as "districts," in contradistinction, to the ancient parishes, but now generally called parishes) having been formed since the year 1818 under the Church Buildings Acts, New Parishes Acts, and other Statutes. As these subdivisions were generally made independently of those adopted for civil purposes, and as the rearrangement, for the purpose of simplification, of civil parishes under the Divided Parishes Acts of 1876, 1879 and 1882, and the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894, did not extend to ecclesiastical parishes, the tendency to divergence between the civil and the ecclesiastical area, which had begun to manifest itself before the commencement of the nineteenth century has, as already pointed out, been enormously accentuated during its course. But the modern civil parish and the modern ecclesiastical parish have their common origin in the "parish" of the Elizabethan Act, now referred to as the ancient parish.

The total number of civil parishes at the date of the Census of 1911 was 14,614, or about 1,000 less than that of the "parishes or places separately relieving their own paupers" of 1835 (amalgamations authorized by the Local Government Act of 1888 having more than counterbalanced the subdivisions above referred to), and the total number of ecclesiastical parishes was 14,323, or almost 4,000 more than that of the "parishes and parochial chapelries" of 1821. As a result of the independent treatment of the two classes of area there are now only about 6,000 instances in which the ecclesiastical and civil boundaries coincide.

Unions and Registration Districts. —Although the parish was the original unit for poor law administration under the Act of Elizabeth, and although the first change in this practice was the substitution of a smaller area, the township in the north, under the Act of Charles II, a larger unit of area was found later to be desirable for some purposes and an Act of 1723 (9 Geo. I, cap. 7) enabled parishes to unite for the purpose of maintaining their joint poor in one common workhouse. This process was continued by the Act 22 Geo. III, cap. 83, 1782 (Gilbert's Act), and by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which created the Poor Law Union as it now exists.5 It was the Union which was adopted as the basis for the administration of the Act for Registering Births, Deaths and Marriages, 1836 (6 and 7 Will. IV, cap. 86), under the name of "Registration District," and the Registration 'Districts are co-extensive with the Poor Law Unions, except in nine cases, when they comprise two entire Unions. The Registration Districts were combined for statistical purposes into Registration Counties, and these again into Registration Divisions, eleven in number for England and Wales. The number of Registration Districts on the 1st of April, 1911, was 635, including the Scilly Isles, which is not a Poor Law Union, and these were subdivided into 2,009 Registration Subdistricts, divisions of the country in which Births and Deaths are registered by a special Officer, the Registrar, and which consist of one or more civil parishes or parts of parishes.

In the Census of 1851 these divisions of the country laid down by the Poor Law and Registration Acts were definitely adopted as those "in every way best suited to a statistical survey of the population" (see Report, p. xx). At the same time, however, statistics were also published for the older territorial divisions, such as ancient counties, hundreds, wapentakes, cities and municipal boroughs, parishes, townships, extra-parochial places and liberties, and certain other anomalous divisions, besides parliamentary divisions and ecclesiastical areas.

Before the Census of 1881 took place, a fresh subdivision of the country was made which was destined by degrees to supersede in administrative importance not only the ancient territorial divisions but also the Poor Law and Registration areas. As a result of the Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875, the Census Report of that year had to take account of 966 Urban Sanitary Districts and 578 Rural Sanitary Districts in addition to all the other areas. The Urban Districts were reorganized, but not, for the most part, newly created by this Act, but the Rural Districts were a new creation. In the formation of Poor Law Unions the principle had been adopted of taking a market town as a centre and uniting to it surrounding parishes. Though convenient for many purposes, this arrangement had the disadvantage of frequently causing Unions to comprise portions of two counties, so that the registration counties made up by the aggregation of unions or registration districts differed in many cases materially from the original or ancient counties, and therefore from the modern administrative counties, in the delimitation of which the ancient county boundaries were much more closely adhered to (see p. 27); for example, the Poor Law Union of Stamford extends into five, and Peterborough into four Administrative Counties; there are 18 unions, each situated partly in three Administrative Counties, and 110 each partly in two. Moreover, when sanitary districts were established under the Public Health Acts, the Union, comprising as it did in the majority of instances both urban and rural areas, proved to be ill adapted to the new requirements. As more extensive powers were naturally entrusted under these Acts to urban than to rural areas, it was necessary to constitute each town as a separate sanitary district independent of the adjacent' rural area. Hence it came about that Unions were very generally divided into two or more sanitary districts, one representing the rural portion of the Union and the others the town or towns contained in it.

If this practice had been adhered to subsequently it might be supposed that the registration and administrative counties would have 'been made almost if not quite identical by the Local Government Act of 1894 which provided that "unless the county council for special reasons otherwise direct, the whole of each Rural District shall be within the same Administrative County (page 27)." For if the whole of the rural portion of a Union had come under this plan to be a situate as a Rural District in a single Administrative County just as the entire Union is situate in a single Registration County the possibilities of difference would have been limited to the urban portions of the unions which were constituted Urban Districts.

The Registration County, which is not a statutory area, was formed by simple aggregation of unions, the whole of a Union situated in two or more ancient counties having been allotted to the registration county corresponding to the ancient county in which the greater part of the population of the union was contained in 1831.

In the case of Rural Districts and Administrative Counties the opposite plan was usually followed. The county boundaries having been already fixed by the Act of 1888 in general conformity with those of the ancient county, Rural Districts were in most cases either subdivided or altered in area so as to secure correspondence with the unaltered counties. In the one case the district was kept unchanged and the county altered: in the other the county was kept unchanged the and district g altered. This divergence of practice accounts for most of the difference between Administrative and Registration Counties.

Other differences arose as follows:—Towns situate in the portions of unions transferred from one county to another in forming Registration Counties naturally remain in the Administrative County corresponding to that to which they anciently belong, the Registration County, as a non-statutory area, not influencing the matter.

It may be added that while the Local Government Acts subdivided the district and preserved the county intact in the case of most of the rural areas, they got over the difficulty in the case of towns by the opposite method, followed in the formation of Registration Counties, of altering the county to preserve the district intact. By the Act of 1888 an urban district situated partly in each of two counties was deemed to be within the county which contained the larger portion of the population of the district.

The effect of recent legislation, which has temporarily increased the complications of census tabulation, owing to the necessity of retaining older areas of subdivision while the change was in progress, should ultimately tend to simplification. It is a question, for instance, whether the present amount of tabulation of census statistics by registration areas will be much longer justified. Except in regard to the Poor Law, these statistics serve no administrative purpose. The Registration Districts are, it is true, still the areas for the collection of returns of marriages, births and deaths, and the vital statistics based on these returns have, since the origin of Civil Registration in 1837, been presented for Registration Counties, Districts and Subdistricts, In order to complete the statistical record for the Decennium 1901 to 1910, it has been necessary to continue to tabulate statistics for these -areas in certain of the volumes of the present report dealing with social statistics (see p, 7). But as the vital statistics of the country from the year 1911 onwards are published for administrative areas, although necessarily —pending reform of the Registration Acts—still collected by registration areas, this reason for tabulation by registration areas will disappear in the case of future Reports. Nothing need now be published for registration areas which is not required for the purposes of Poor Law and Registration administration, and if in time the administration of the Poor Law upon which the Registration system now depends should be entrusted to the bodies responsible for the other local government of the country, it would be possible to dispense altogether with tabulation by registration areas.

Size of Civil Parishes .—Civil parishes differ considerably both in area and population. The particulars for each Administrative County will be found in Table 10, Volume I; but taking England and Wales in the aggregate the 14,614 civil parishes may be classified according to their population as follows:—

Number of Civil Parishes. Population in 1911.
14              No population
733   1 and under 50
1,277   50 " 100
2,519   100 " 200
1,924   200 " 300
1,417   300 " 400
1,057   400 " 500
1,499   500 " 750
815   750 " 1,000
2,376   1,000 " 5,000
420   5,000 " 10,000
261   10,000 " 20,000
302   20,000 and upwards
Total 14,614    

Many of the Civil Parishes with little, or no, population came into existence in the following ways:—

  1. Until the year 1857 there were many Extra-Parochial Places scattered throughout England and Wales, which were not rated for the relief of the Poor. An Act, however, of that year declared that every Extra-Parochial Place entered separately in the 1851 Census Report should become a separate Civil Parish; but this did not cover the case of every Extra-Parochial Place, as some were unknown to the Census Commissioners and others were only referred to in notes. In these cases the Act was merely permissive, and, therefore, probably largely inoperative, so by a later Act of 1868 it was declared that every Extra-Parochial Place existing on the 25th December, 1868, should be added to the next adjoining Civil Parish with which it had the longest common boundary. None, therefore, now remain except 12 areas (all islands).
  2. The Local Government Act of 1894, declared that 110 Civil Parish could be situated partly within and partly without a Rural District, and directed that each part should become a separate Civil Parish. Some of the Civil Parishes thus automatically created were very small both in area and population in some cases they were, and are, uninhabited. Several still remain without any definite name.

There are 46 cases in which lands are common to two or more Civil Parishes. These appear to be in the main uninclosed lands over which rights of common, or other similar rights, exist, belonging (although sometimes in varying degrees) to all, or some, of the inhabitants of two, or more Civil Parishes.

Population and Rates of Increase in Registration Counties. —Table 8 on pages 429 to 441 of Volume II shows for each Registration County and District:—

  1. the population in 1901 and 1911;
  2. the numbers of marriage, births, and deaths registered in the intercensal periods;
  3. the increase or decrease of population;
  4. the excess of births over deaths or of deaths over births;
  5. the gain or loss by migration.

In England and Wales as a whole the increase of population in the intercensal period 1901-1911 was 3,542,649, or 10.9 per cent., which was accounted for by an excess of births over deaths of 4,044,868, equal to 12.4 per cent., and a loss by migration of 502,219, or 1.5 per cent.

The following Table shows for each Registration County what proportion of the total increase or decrease of population in the intercensal period, 1901-1911, was due to (a ) natural increment and (b ) to gain or loss by migration.

TABLE XII.—REGISTRATION COUNTIES.—INCREASE OR DECREASE OF POPULATION, EXCESS OF BIRTHS OVER DEATHS, AND GAIN OR LOSS BY MIGRATION, 1901-1911.

In all the counties the births registered in the intercensal period outnumbered the deaths, so that, had there been no migration, the population in every county would have been greater in 1911 than at the previous enumeration. But, as a matter of fact, of the 55 Registration Counties there were seven—London, Cumberland, Westmorland, Cardiganshire, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire, and Merionethshire—in which the population decreased in the last intercensal period. These seven counties had not only lost all their natural increment, but something over and above, owing to losses by migration. There were 31 other Registration Counties in which the actual increase was less than the natural increase, while in the remaining 17 counties the actual growth as shown by enumeration was in excess of the natural growth as shown by excess of births over deaths. Of the 17 counties which absorbed population from without, it will be observed that some of the largest gains from migration were in the counties surrounding the Metropolis, viz., Middlesex (22.7 per cent.), Surrey (15.5 per cent.), Hertfordshire (8.9 per cent.), and Essex (8.5 per cent.); while two counties in which mining is the leading industry also showed considerable gains, viz., Monmouthshire (10.9 per cent.) and Glamorganshire (10.6 per cent.). The counties next in order were Carmarthenshire (8.6 per cent.) and Hampshire (7.7 per cent.). In the nine remaining counties— Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, Bedfordshire, Flintshire, Sussex, Dorsetshire, Lincolnshire, Buckinghamshire, Northumberland—the gains by migration were inconsiderable, ranging from 3.9 to 0.2 per cent.

The actual increase or decrease per cent, of population and the rate of natural increase by excess of births over deaths is shown for each registration county in Diagram VIII.

DIAGRAM VIII.—Increase or Decrease per cent. in the population of Registration Counties during the intercensal period 1901-1911; distinguishing the increase due to excess of Births over Deaths.

increase or decrease in county populations 1901 to 1911

4. PARLIAMENTARY AREAS.

Parliamentary Counties. —The area and the total population of every County at successive Censuses from 1801 appear in Table 3 of the Summary Volume. The county here referred to is the Ancient or Geographical County (see page 28) as modified in certain cases by the Parliamentary Boundaries Act, 1832. By this Act many of the detached parts of counties were, for the purposes of the election of members of Parliament, transferred to the counties in which they were locally situate; and by a later Act, in 1844, this transference of detached portions as made applicable to all purposes. The alterations of boundaries thus effected were numerous, and in some cases involved the transfer of a considerable area; particulars of these changes are shown in the 1851 Census tables. A few minor alterations of county boundaries were made under See. 18 of the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, which gave effect for parliamentary purposes to some of the parochial changes made under the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Acts, 1876 to 1882.

Divisions of Counties. —No other alterations of the external boundaries of parliamentary counties appear to have taken place since 1844, but the several divisions of counties which were made by the Reform Act of 1832 were modified by the Boundary Act, 1868, and lastly by the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885.

The county divisions were originally based on the Hundreds or similar ancient jurisdictions Lathes in Kent and Rapes in Sussex), and the object of the re-division in 1868 was "to equalize as far as practicable the population of each division and to render the division as compact as possible with regard to geographical position without disturbing the old-established and well-understood boundaries of Hundreds" (see Report of Boundary Commissioners, 1868). Where it was found impracticable to follow the boundary of the Hundred, the arrangement of Petty Sessional Divisions was adopted.

In 1884, however, the Commissioners who had been appointed to enquire into the boundaries to be assigned to the divisions affected by the proposed Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, were instructed that each division should, as a rule, be based upon "petty sessional divisions or other areas consisting of an aggregate of parishes," and that ''a divisional boundary should not intersect a parish." After consideration the Commissioners determined to follow Petty Sessional Divisions in preference to any other areas consisting of an aggregate of parishes. They objected to the Hundred as a basis on the ground that "it is now [1884] almost obsolete, often has detached parts, and its boundaries are in some instances no longer ascertainable." Poor Law Unions were held to be unsuitable because nearly 200 of them overlapped county boundaries. The Petty Sessional Division, on the other hand, "is always contained within the county, and its units, like those of the Poor Law Union, consist in almost all cases of entire parishes" (see Report of Boundary Commissioners, 1885).

The Petty Sessional Division as existing on the 1st January, 1885, was therefore, adopted as the basis of the Parliamentary Division as at present constituted, and this was doubtless the most convenient arrangement at the time. Subsequent changes however, in the boundaries of Petty Sessional Divisions, as well as the very many parochial changes effected in consequence of the Local Government Acts of 1888 and 1894, and by the London Government Act, 1899, have brought about a very general divergence of administrative from parliamentary boundaries, while varying rates of increase of population in different parts of the country have seriously impaired the equality in numbers, which was one of the objects aimed at by the successive redistributions.

Parliamentary Boroughs .—Until the passing of the Reform Act of 1832 the Parliamentary Borough appears to have been almost, invariably identical with the Municipal through. By that Act Some boroughs were disfranchised, some places were created boroughs for parliamentary purposes only, and in some cases the parliamentary limits of the borough were extended beyond the municipal limits.

Further alterations in the boundaries of parliamentary boroughs were made by the Reform Act of 1867 and the Boundary Act, 1868, under which extensions of existing boroughs were effected in sixty-nine cases, ten new boroughs were created arid four dis-franchised. These alterations did not involve corresponding increase of municipal areas, but the growth of urban populations created a tendency on the part of municipal to out grow parliamentary limits during the succeeding period.

The Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, disfranchised 81 parliamentary boroughs created 33 new boroughs and altered the boundaries of 37 existing boroughs in England and Wales. The disfranchised boroughs included all those which had at the Census of 1881 a population of less than 15,000, and a few larger boroughs which included considerable extra-municipal areas. The alterations of borough boundaries effected under this Act were, which few exceptions, extensions of the existing areas, and in many cases re-established the identity of the municipal with the parliamentary limits. Municipalities are, however, still constantly enlarging their boundaries, and much of the simplification of areas resulting from the Act of 1885 has now been lost. Not only were the outer boundaries of many parliamentary boroughs brought into line with the municipal boundaries, but the internal divisions of boroughs which were introduced by this Act followed in many cases the ward boundaries, and thus the area for local elections under the Municipal Corporation Acts (or under the Metropolis Management Act) became also the basis of the area for the election of members of Parliament; in some of the boroughs municipal changes have affected these relations, and in the Metropolis the correspondence of local with parliamentary electoral areas no longer exists.

Table 4 in Volume III shows the constitution by parishes of the 178 Parliamentary Boroughs (including groups of Contributory Boroughs) in England and Wales and the differences at the date of the Census of 1911 between the parliamentary and municipal limits; municipal boroughs which are wholly included in county divisions are not shown. It will be seen from the table that in only 30 cases were the parliamentary and municipal borough boundaries identical, and the differences in the other 148 boroughs are in some cases very considerable. For example, Hythe had a population of over 50,000 within its parliamentary limits, which include, in addition to the municipal borough of Hythe with a population of only 6,387, the whole of Folkestone municipal borough, and Sandgate and Cheriton urban districts, and parts of Elham and Romney Marsh rural districts. Christchurch parliamentary borough contained 88,734 persons, of whom only 5,104 were within the municipal limits; 4,956 were in the rural district and 78,674 in Bournemouth county borough. Other striking examples of parliamentary boroughs containing large extra municipal populations are Dudley, Newcastle under Lyme, and Wolverhampton, while, on the other hand, the county boroughs of Manchester and Leicester, and the metropolitan borough of the City of Westminster, each contain populations considerably in excess of the parliamentary boroughs of the same names.

In Wales many of the parliamentary boroughs are so small that they are grouped together to form single constituencies; thus the Flint District of Boroughs comprises eight contributory boroughs, only one of which corresponds with any municipal or parochial area.

The parliamentary boroughs in London differ throughout from the metropolitan boroughs into which the administrative County of London was divided by the London Government Act, 1899; that Act provided for such improvements and simplification of boundaries as might be expedient for convenience of administration; the newly created boroughs were re-divided into wards and the parochial boundaries were adjusted but the old parliamentary boundaries were retained.

Since the passing of the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, there has been no re-constitution of parliamentary areas.

Number and Population of Parliamentary Areas .—The Parliamentary areas into which England and Wales is divided number 468, exclusive of the Universities; in twenty-two cases two members are returned for an undivided borough constituency; thus there are 490 members representing a population of 36,070,492 persons, or an average of one member for 73,613 persons. The Counties and County divisions, with a population of 19,613,953 persons, return 253 members, an average of one member for 77,526 persons; the Boroughs and divisions of Boroughs return 237 members for 16,45 B, 539 persons, an average of one member for 69,437 persons. The following table shows how far the actual representation varies from these averages. Where an undivided constituency is represented by two members, each member is reckoned in the table as representing half the population of the entire constituency:—

Constituencies having the following
Population per Representative.
Counties and Divisions of Counties. Boroughs and Divisions of Boroughs.
Number
of Con-
stituencies.
Total
Population,
1911.
Number
of Electors,
1911.*
Number
of Con-
stituencies.
Number
of Repre-
sentatives.
Total
Population,
1911.
Number
of Electors,
1911.*
100,000 and upwards 48 6,591,966 1,147,025 35 38 4,682,148 754,678
90,000 and under 100,000 20 1,899,402 348,603 13 13 1,220,017 194,124
80,000    "    90,000 20 1,687,863 315,382 26 28 2,372,468 361,218
70,000    "    80,000 27 2,010,403 388,098 23 26 1,941,486 306,939
60,000    "    70,000 41 2,637,034 535,039 29 32 2,092,117 308,820
50,000    "    60,000 53 2,889,713 602,965 32 35 1,938,172 314,800
40,000    "    50,000 36 1,662,738 361,389 21 24 1,076,850 169,885
30,000    "    40,000 5 168,819 36,226 15 18 655,697 115,116
20,000    "    30,000 3 66,015 15,532 13 14 332,450 57,601
10,000    "    20,000 7 7 125,477 22,251
Under 10,000 (City of London) 1 2 19,657 30,988
  253 19,613,953 3,750,259 215 237 16,456,539 2,636,420

The eight boroughs in which the population per representative is less than 20,000 are as follows:—

Borough Population, 1911 Number of Electors, 1911*
City of London (2 Members) 19,657 30,988
Durham 15,956 2,698
Bury St.Edmunds 16,785 2,878
Montgomery District of Boroughs 16,814 3,458
Penryn and Falmouth 17,620 3,491
Whitehaven 18,571 2,989
New Windsor 19,840 3,325
Salisbury 19,891 3,412

On the other hand there are no fewer than 83 constituencies in which the population is upwards of 100,000 per member; examples of the most populous single-member constituencies are shown hereunder:—

Boroughs and Divisions of Boroughs. Population,
1911.
Number
of Electors,
1911.*
Divisions of Counties. Population,
1911.
Number
of Electors,
1911.*
Wandsworth 253,759 39,821 Southern or Romford, Essex 312,804 55,951
West Ham, South Division 187,230 27,310 Harrow, Middlesex 247,820 38,865
Cardiff District of Boroughs 185,858 28,932 S.W. or Walthamstow, Essex 246,788 42,029
Croydon 169,551 28,397 Tottenham, Middlesex 186,619 29,280
Lewisham 160,963 26,026 Enfield, Middlesex 180,069 30,565
Fulham 153,319 22,051 Bootle, Lancashire 167,491 25,470
      Eastern Glamorganshire 164,803 24,714
      N.E. or Wimbledon, Surrey 160.289 29,929
      Handsworth, Staffordshire 159,798 29,769
      Ealing, Middlesex 158,125 26,779

* The numbers of electors are those of persons who in 1910 were qualified for inclusion in the Registers which came into force on 1st January, 1911.

As already stated, the extreme variations in the populations of the several constituencies are due mainly to their varying rates of increase since 1881. The populations at the Censuses of 1881 and 1911 of some of the above-mentioned constituencies are shown in the following table as illustrating this point:—

Constituencies having less than
20,000 population per representa-
tive in 1911.
Population Constituencies having more than
180,000 population per repre-
sentative In 1911.
Population
1881 1911 1881 1911
City of London (2 Members) 50,652 19,657 S. or Romford, Essex 52,690 312,804
Durham 14,932 15,956 Wandsworth Borough 66,792 253,759
Bury St. Edmunds 16,111 16,785 Harrow, Middlesex 54,717 247,820
Montgomery District Of Boroughs 19,925 16,814 S.W. or Walthamstow, Essex 51,885 246,788
Penryn and Falmouth 18,072 17,620 West Ham (S. Division) 62,278 187,230
Whitehaven 19,295 18,571 Tottenham, Middlesex 46,456 186,619
New Windsor 19,082 19,840 Cardiff District of Boroughs 85,862 185,858
Salisbury 14,792 19,891 Enfield, Middlesex 54,153 180,069
       Total 172,861 145,134        Total 474,833 1,800,947

In 1891 there were only seven constituencies with populations exceeding 100,000 per member, and the most populous single-member constituency at that time, viz., Cardiff District of Boroughs, contained only 85,862 persons in 1881. By 1901 the number of constituencies having more than 100,000 population per member had risen to 41, and in 1911 it further rose to 83.

From the comparative statement above it appears that the eight constituencies each having less than 20,000 population showed in. the aggregate an actual decrease since 1881, and even if the exceptional case of the City of London be excluded the aggregate increase is insignificant ; on the other hand, the eight large constituencies have a population nearly four times as great as that which served as the basis for the redistribution in 1885, and at the average rate of representation would return twenty-four members instead of eight.

Number of Electors. —The total number of electors in 1911, exclusive of the Universities, was 6,386,679, of whom 3,750,259 were electors for county constituencies and 2,636,420 for borough constituencies; in proportion to population, therefore, there is on an average one elector among 5.6 persons in the country as a whole, 5.2 persons in the counties, and 6.2 persons in the boroughs. The proportions show less variation in the county constituencies than in the boroughs. In nineteen divisions of counties there is an average of more than six persons to one elector; these include eight divisions in Lancashire (Blackpool, Bootle, Gorton. Leigh, Newton, Ormskirk, Southport, and Widnes), three in Middlesex (Brentford, Harrow, and Tottenham), two in Glamorganshire (Eastern and Ehondda), two in Yorkshire (Barnsley and Rotherham), and one each in Cheshire (Wirral), in Kent (Isle of Thanet), in Sussex (Eastbourne), and in Hampshire (Basingstoke); in the last-named division the exceptionally high ratio of population to electors is due to the inclusion of the military, population at Aldershot, without which the division approximates very closely to the average. On the other hand, the ratio of population to electors was as low as 3.4 in the Pudsey Division of Yorkshire West Hiding, 3.7 in Radnorshire, 3.9 in the Tavistock Division of Devonshire, and 4.0 in the Gainsborough and Holland Divisions of Lincolnshire, in the Kingswinford Division of Staffordshire, and in the Holderness Division of Yorkshire East Riding.

The lowness of some of these rates is to be explained by the fact that under the Reform Act of 1832 and subsequent Acts, borough voters qualified as such in respect of a freehold of the dear yearly value of 10 have the privilege of voting also in a neighbouring county division. Thus the Leeds freeholders vote in the Pudsey Division, those of Boston in the Holland Division, Devonport in the Tavistock Division, Lincoln in the Gainsborough Division, Wolverhampton and part of Dudley in the Kingswinford Division and Kingston upon Hull in the Holderness Division. It may be noted that of 1832 Norwich and Nottingham, which were at the time of the Reform Act of 1832 counties of themselves" have never been attached to any County and consequently their freeholders have no vote in any county division.

Examples of high proportion of population to electors in parliamentary boroughs are found mainly in the metropolis; thus, in the several divisions of the Tower Hamlets the rates range from 8.0 in Poplar, 8.1 in Bow and Bromley 8.2 in Lime house, and 8.4 in Mile End, to 137 in Stepney, 15.0 in St. George, and 16.7 in Whitechapel, the three latter divisions containing a considerable alien, and therefore voteless, element in their populations ; in both divisions of Kensington, in the South West Division of Bethnal Green, in Hammersmith, in North Lambeth in South Paddington. and in South St. Pancras there are more than eight persons to an elector While outside London similarly high rates are found only in the Everton and Scotland Divisions of Liverpool.

In the Strand Parliamentary Borough, in Great Grimsby, in the South Division of Bristol, and in Pembroke and Haverfordwest District of Boroughs there was an average of only 5.1 persons to an elector, in Penryn and Falmouth and in Lincoln 5.0 and in the Central Division of Birmingham and the Montgomery District of Boroughs 4.9.

Among all constituencies the City of London is unique in having more electors on the register than it had persons enumerated within its area on Census night,6 there being 19,657 population as compared with 30,988 electors.

Conclusion. —The chief points brought out by an examination of the figures are thus (1) the lack of identity between parliamentary and any other areas in the Kingdom, and (2) the degree to which the relation between population and representation established in principle by the Act of 1885, has been disturbed by the growth and movement of the population since that date. It is hardly to be anticipated that complete correspondence between parliamentary and administrative areas could be permanently maintained, even if temporarily secured by a new scheme of redistribution; since the needs for farther alteration would be found, in the future as in the past, to vary widely in the two cases. It is to be hoped, however, that in any future rearrangements of parliamentary areas it may be possible to base these areas upon, and build them, up from, conveniently sized units in the shape of pre-existing administrative areas; the urban or rural district, the civil parish or the ward, as the case may be.


5. ECCLESIASTICAL AREAS.

The Ecclesiastical Province. —England and Wales, together with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, are, for ecclesiastical purposes, primarily divided into two Provinces—those of Canterbury and York—the former containing 27 Dioceses and the latter 10.

The Diocese. —There are at present 37 Dioceses; those of ancient foundation, going hack for the most part to Saxon times, number 22, viz.:—

Province of Canterbury
Bangor Llandaff
Bath and Wells London
Canterbury Norwich
Chichester Rochester
Ely St. Asaph
Exeter St. David's
Hereford Salisbury
Lichfield Winchester
Lincoln Worchester
Province of York
Carlisle Sodor and Man
(Annexed to the Province of York in the reign of Henry VIII.)
Durham
York

During the reign of Henry VIII six new Dioceses were founded, viz.:—Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford, Peterborough, and Westminster. The Bishopric of Westminster, however, only lasted until 1550, when it was again incorporated with the bee of London. Under the provisions of an Act passed in the year 1836 (6 and 7 William IV, cap. 77) the Sees of Gloucester and Bristol were united and the Diocese of Ripon was created by this Statute power was also given to alter the limits of nearly all the filing Dioceses, by effecting a transference of Parishes from one to another with a view to a more convenient division of territory.

Since the Act of William IV (1836) nine new Dioceses have been created, viz.:—

Manchester 1847 Southwell 1884
Truro 1876 Wakefield 1888
St. Albans 1877 Southwark 1905
Liverpool 1880 Birmingham 1905
Newcastle 1882    

and by an Order in Council, dated 7th July, 1897, the Diocese of Bristol, which had been united to that of Gloucester in 1836, was reconstituted.

The Ecclesiastical Parish. —Some account has already been given (page 43) of the ancient parish which, according to many authorities, elates from a period anterior to the Norman Conquest, and of the manner in which the ecclesiastical and civil functions exercised by it came to be dissociated. In course of time many of the original ancient parishes were divided into subordinate areas, and these frequently became distinct Ecclesiastical Parishes; this was especially the case in the northern counties, where the original parishes were usually of great extent. The principal legislative enactments affecting the boundaries of Parishes were (1) an Act passed in the year 1545 (37 Henry Till, cap. 21), which permitted the union of benefices not exceeding 6 in annual value; (2) an Act of 1665 (17 Charles II, cap. 3) which permitted Parishes entirely in Towns Corporate (or their Liberties) to be united by the Bishop, subject to various consents being obtained; (3). an Act of 1670 (22 Charles II, cap. 11) which, in consequence of the great fire, united many Parishes in the City of London; (4) an Act of 1710 (9 Anne, cap. 22) which authorised the building of fifty new churches, and the assignment of Parishes to them in the Cities of London and Westminster and their suburbs; this Act was, however, only partially carried out. In addition to these general Acts there were various local Acts under the provisions of which Ecclesiastical Parishes have been created.

These Acts did not, however, contribute materially to the differentiation between the area for ecclesiastical purposes and that for civil purposes which became so marked during the XIXth century.

Waste lands also appear to have been gradually brought within the parochial system ; this movement was considerably accelerated by an Act passed in the year 1743 (17 Geo. II, cap. 37) under the provisions of which improved wastes and drained lands were to be rated to the Parish to which they belonged, which was to be the nearest one in case of doubt.

It should also be mentioned that in those cases where the income of a Chapel was augmented by the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, the Incumbent became a Perpetual Curate, irremovable by the Rector or Vicar of the Mother Church, so that in practice the districts served by the Chapels often became distinct Ecclesiastical Parishes.

The manner in which the present wide divergence between ecclesiastical and civil parishes developed during the course of the XIXth century has already been outlined on page 43.

Extra-Parochial Places. —A striking anomaly in the division of England and Wales Into ecclesiastical areas exists in the large number of places not included in the limits of any Ecclesiastical Parish. These places are often the sites of religious houses or of ancient castles, the owners of which were able, in former times, to prevent any interference on the part of the civil or ecclesiastical authorities within their limits Instances of such cases are St John's Hospital (Canterbury), St. Bartholomew's Hospital (Sandwich), Norwich Castle Lancaster Castle, Rochester Cathedral Precincts, the Close of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter (Westminster Abbey), &c. The Royal Forests such as the New Forest and Peak Forest; certain islands, such as Bardsey Island and Caldy Island, and reclaimed lands, such as Grunty Fen and Shuff Fen, are also reputed To be extra-ecclesiastical for ecclesiastical purposes. Under certain statues, power to deal with Extra-Parochial Places have been conferred on the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and on the Bishops of the several Dioceses.

Boundaries of Ecclesiastical Parishes. —It was not until the census of 1851 that a Return was given of the population enumerated in Ecclesiastical Parishes. The Census Act of 1850 required that the account to be taken on March 31st , 1851, should include not only as at former censuses, the population of Parishes, Townships and Extra-Parochial Places, hut also for the first time the population of Ecclesiastical Districts in England and Wales. In the report on the census of 1851 it is stated that "the task of obtaining accurately the population of these districts has been one of very great difficulty, Designed exclusively for spiritual purposes, their boundaries are quite ignored by the general public and rarely known by any secular officers; while in many eases even the Clergy themselves, unprovided with maps or plans, are uncertain as to the limits of their respective cures." The difficulties experienced in 1851 in ascertaining the correct boundaries of Ecclesiastical Parishes have increased rather than diminished fit each succeeding census, owing mainly to the creation from time to time of many new Ecclesiastical Parishes and the consequent alteration in the boundaries of old ones, and to the numerous changes in boundaries of Civil Parishes due to the operation of the Divided Parishes Acts of 1876 to 1882. Under the provisions of these Acts many thousands of detached parts of Civil Parishes were added to the Parishes by which they were wholly surrounded, or with which they had the longest common boundary. Although a section in these Acts expressly declares that "nothing herein contained shall apply to the ecclesiastical divisions of Parishes," many persons acted on the assumption, that the changes in the boundaries of Civil Parishes involved corresponding changes in the boundaries of Ecclesiastical Parishes. Further changes in the boundaries of Civil Parishes which did not affect those of Ecclesiastical Parishes were also made under the Provisions of the Local government Acts of 1888 and 1894.

When the plans for taking the census of 1911 were under consideration, it was realised that in order to overcome the difficulties met with on previous occasions it would be necessary to furnish the local officers responsible for the taking of the census with accurate information regarding the limits of ecclesiastical areas within their districts. In these circumstances, it was decided, in the absence of published maps showing the boundaries of Ecclesiastical Parishes in England and Wales, to undertake at the Census Office the task of plotting the boundaries on Ordnance Survey Maps and to supply each Registrar with a map of his district showing the ecclesiastical areas marked thereon.

Since in 1801 the boundaries of Civil and Ecclesiastical Parishes were in the majority of cases identical, the first step was to ascertain the ancient parish boundaries as existing at that date. The records in the possession of the Ordnance Survey Department, supplemented where necessary by reference to tithe maps in the custody of the Board of Agriculture, were found to be invaluable for this purpose. The extent of the ancient parishes having been determined, the next step was to take account of all the ecclesiastical changes which had taken place since 1801, either by the creation of new parishes or by alterations in the boundaries of old ones. This necessitated reference to some thousands of Orders in Council, under the provisions of which new Ecclesiastical Parishes have been mainly created in recent, years. In these Orders the boundaries of the Parishes were at first only verbally described, and it was not until later years that maps were annexed. Considerable difficulties were met with in interpreting the descriptions given in many of the older schemes, owing to changes—due to building operations, alterations of civil boundaries, renaming of streets, &c.—which had taken place since the descriptions of boundaries were originally drafted.

Other difficulties arose with regard to those Particular Districts created by the Bishops on their own authority; in such cases the deeds describing the boundaries are deposited with the Diocesan. Registrars, and it was sometimes found necessary to consult these documents. In numerous other instances the Clergy had to be consulted; they and the Diocesan Registrars rendered every assistance in their power, even in some cases forwarding original documents and maps to the Census Office for reference. The foregoing remarks will convey some idea of the extent of the work and the amount of research required in order to ascertain the correct limits of all the ecclesiastical areas in the country, and we have reason to believe that the maps prepared at the Census Office are substantially accurate. The record of boundaries which has now been completed will be kept up to date by incorporating the changes due to the creation of new parishes and alterations in the limits of old ones, and it is hoped that the Ordnance Maps 011 which the boundaries are marked will be of permanent value to the ecclesiastical authorities.

Population of Ecclesiastical Areas. —At the date of the census of 1911 the aggregate population of the twenty-seven Dioceses comprised in the Province of Canterbury was 24,08 5,029 (including 96,899 in the Channel Islands), and that of the ten Dioceses in the Province of York 12,134,378 (including 52,016 in the Isle of Man).

In the following table the Dioceses are arranged in the order of their populations in 1911.

TABLE XIII.—DIOCESES: NUMBER OF PARISHES AND POPULATIONS IN EACH DIOCESE, 1911

The relation of the Dioceses to Administrative Counties and County Boroughs is shown in Table 27 of the Summary Volume; from this Table it may be seen that the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are grouped with England and Wales for ecclesiastical purposes, the Isle of Man forming the Diocese of Sodor and Man in the Province of York, and the Channel Islands being included in the Diocese of Winchester in the Province of Canterbury.

According to the report on the census of 1811,. there were at that time about 10,674 Parishes and Parochial Chapelries in England and Wales; at the date of the census of 1911 the number of Ecclesiastical Parishes had increased to 14323 which together with 34 Parishes in the Channel Islands and 25 in the Isle of Man make a total of 14,382. In addition, there are 398 places in England and Wales, 2 in the Channel Islands, and 1 in the Isle of Man, reputed to be Extra-Parochial for ecclesiastical purposes.

The Ecclesiastical Parishes may be classified according to their population, as follows:—

Number
of Ecclesiastical
Parishes.
Population 1911. Proportion per cent.
to Total Number
of Parishes.
  2         No population    
  126   1 and under 50 0.9
  378   50 " 100 2.6
  1,298   100 " 200 9.0
  1,404   200 " 300 9.8
  1,199   300 " 400 8.3
  1,013   400 " 500 7.1
  1,643   500 " 750 11.4
  1,013   750 " 1,000 7.0
  3,795   1,000 " 5,000 26.4
  1,733   5,000 " 10,000 12.1
  700   10,000 " 20,000 4.9
  78   20,000 and upwards.   0.5
Total 14,382         100.0

It will be seen from the above statement that of the 14,382 Parishes in the aggregate, 2,511 or 17.5 per cent, had populations exceeding 5,000. In individual Dioceses, however, the proportions of these populous Parishes differed considerably, the highest proportions being 64.2 per cent, in the Diocese of Southwark, 61.6 in that of London, 59.9 in that of Liverpool, 56.6 in that of Birmingham, 50.2 in that of Manchester, and 49.8 in that of Durham (Table 28 in the Summary Volume).

The alteration in the form of publication by which the results of the census are presented in volumes, each dealing with the country as a whole and containing information on certain subjects only, has enabled us to give a complete list of all the Ecclesiastical Parishes in the country arranged in alphabetical order under the Dioceses in which they are situated, an arrangement which it is believed will prove to be more convenient than that adopted at previous censuses of arranging the Parishes under Ancient Counties. Improvements in the tables have also been effected by giving in foot-notes the numbers of persons in each Parish who were enumerated in large institutions and on board vessels.

It was further decided, with the concurrence of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to substitute for the column given in previous census tables showing the Ancient Parish in -which each Ecclesiastical Parish is comprised, two columns showing (1) the Civil Parish or Parishes and (2) the Administrative County or County Borough in which each Ecclesiastical Parish is situated.


1 The County Borough is in the main, as suggested by the above classification, an independent area of rank similar to that of the Administrative County, forming, in fact, an Administrative County of itself. This, however, holds good only for the purposes of local government, the County Borough still remaining for certain legal purposes a part of the county (if any) in which it was deemed to be situate at the passing of the Local Government Act, 1888.

2 Including the Administrative County of London, which is included as one district.

3 At the date of the census of 1901 the population of the County of Radnor was augmented by a large number of men temporarily engaged in the construction of new waterworks for the City of Birmingham. These men, together with their families, account for the abnormal increase of population in the county in the period 1891-1901; consequently it would be misleading to institute comparisons between the populations as enumerated at the last two censuses.

4 See note on page 32.

5 In many places, especially in the Metropolis, the Poor Law continued to be administered under various local Acts, but by the date of the Census of 1911 the number so administered tad been reduced to 8, viz Birmingham, Brighton, Flegg, Forehoe, Hull, Oswestry, Oxford and Plymouth. A further reduction since the Census has been made by the repeal of the Birmingham Poor Act consequent on the parochial changes effected by the Act confirming the Local Government Board's Provisional Order for the extension of Birmingham.

6 See note to Table X, page 42.

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