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1851 Census
This page covers the 1851 census for England and Wales. The census was taken the night of Sunday 30 March.
The information you will find from the 1851 census is as follows:
- Address – this will generally give you the number of the house and the road. But remember, even if the road (and houses) still exists, it may have been renumbered since. Households are generally separated by lines.
- Name of person.
- Relationship to the head of family.
- Whether married, unmarried or widowed – bear in mind that women whose husband left them may have claimed to be widowed.
- Age – don’t believe everything you read.
- Whether male or female.
- Rank, profession or occupation.
- Place of birth – county and place.
- Whether blind or deaf-and-dumb.
If you subscribe to a site, such as ancestry.co.uk, you can consult their person index for the 1851 census. These have been compiled by transcribers. As many returns were hard to read, your ancestor’s name may have been transcribed wrongly. Therefore, you may have to use some ingenuity in your search. Alternatively, many family history societies have indexed the 1851 census, and these experienced people may have made a better job of the index in your area – contact the local family history society to find out more.
If you can’t find the person you are interested in, you can try browsing the actual census returns for the place you think they were living.
The reference used by the National Archives for the 1851 census (and also the 1841 census) is HO107 (HO 107).
If you would like to find the reference for a particular place, search
the National Archives’ catalogue for the 1851 census.
Set the year range to 1851-1851. Type in HO107 as the series code. Then enter the place name.
Here is a list of counties with the parishes that are missing:
- Cambridgeshire – Ashley-cum-Silverley, Burwell (hamlet Reach), Kennett, Landwade, Newmarket, Snailwell, Swaffham Prior (hamlet Reach).
- Dorset – Sturminster, reported missing 1999.
- Essex – Dunmow (including Little Easton Hamlet, Easton Lodge, Great Dunmow, Little Dunmow, Barnston, Great Canfield, Little Canfield, Takeley), Hatfield (including Hatfield-Broad-Oak or Hatfield Regis, White Roothing, Morrell-Roothing, Aythorp-Roothing or Roding, Leaden-Roothing, Margaret Roothing, High Easter, High Roothing), Stebbing (including Felstead, Stebbing, Bardfield-Saling, Great Bardfield, Lindsell), and Thaxted (Great Easton, Tilty, Broxted, Chickney, Thaxted, Little Bardfield).
- Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire – some census records have been damaged by water during storage. These are mostly the Manchester area. You can still see photographs of some of the original pages, but some parts of pages have been obliterated.
- Suffolk (under Cambridgeshire in 1841 census) – Dalham (hamlets Dunstall-Green and Southwell Park), Exning, Gazeley (hamlets Gazeley with Needham Street and Higham Green), Lidgate, Moulton, Ousden, St Mary.
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