1911 Census of England and Wales

UPDATE:

The official site for the 1911 Census of England and Wales was originally launched on January 13. The site was initally launched with 35 English counties but - unfortunately for me - neither County Durham or Northumberland were among these initial counties.

More counties have since been added - and, as at April 11, all of the remaining English Counties (Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland) and the missing Gateshead district records from County Durham have now been added. Therefore all English counties are now complete and online.

Scanning of Welsh records is underway and some data from Wales should be available in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

1911 Census

The 1911 Census is not covered by the Census Act 1920 which requires the closure of all subsequent censuses for 100 years. A challenge was made under the Freedom of Information Act to allow access to the 1911 Census earlier than 100 years and, following referral, the Information Commissioner ruled that access should be given. However personally sensitive information will not be released until 2012.

Unfortunately it is not possible to show a sample page - but the details shown in the 1911 Census for each person are name and surname, age, sex, marital status, occupation, birthplace, nationality, infirmity (only available after January 2012 under the 100 year rule - until then this will be obscured). Additionally, for married women the census shows number of years married and number of children born to present marriage, living or deceased.

Unlike the pages for the 1901 Census and before, the 1911 Census will show schedules completed by the householders themselves, rather than by the census enumerators. This means that when you find a census page relating to an ancestor, you will see their own handwriting and signature if they were head of the household.

Life in England and Wales in 1911:

The estimated population in England and Wales in 1911 was 36,003,276 people. Today’s population is an estimated 54 million people.

Life expectancy was 54 years for women and 50 for men in 1911. By 2011 life expectancy is predicted to be 82 for women and 74 for men. There was an estimated 100 centenarians in England and Wales in 1911 - today this has grown 90-fold to 9,300 people.

The average family had 2.8 children in 1911 - the average in 2008 was 1.8 children.

The top five occupations in 1911 were domestic service (1,302,438), agriculture (1,229,555), coal mining (971,236), building (817,942) and cotton manufacture (623,825).