The 1901 Census

A census, or detailed headcount of the population of England and Wales, is taken once every 10 years.  By tradition, the census is taken during the first year of each decade, in the spring, usually during the months of March or April, and on a Sunday night when it is thought that most people are staying in their usual place of residence.  The early census returns just listed the number of people living in a household, together with the surname of the head of that household; but the more modern census returns provide much more detailed information and this data is invaluable to genealogists.

The 1901 census was taken on the night of Sunday 31st March.

The census data is kept secret for 100 years and is then made available by the Public Record Office (PRO) for open inspection.  The census material is published by The National Archives on either on microfilm or microfiche, which can be viewed at many record offices and libraries worldwide; and the 1901 census is also available on the internet on a pay-per-view basis.

I have been slowly accumulating the 1901 census data on the Woolgar Family and the people living with them on census night.  This is a mammoth task and will obviously take some time to complete.  This page should therefore be regarded as “work in progress” and it will be updated from time-to-time as the extractions for each county are completed.

So far, I have completed the extractions for the counties of East and West Sussex, sorted into alphabetical order of surname and forenames; and I have also produced a complete transcript of the entries for the parish of Bramber in enumeration order, a place of particular relevance for many Woolgar researchers.

To view the Sussex extracts, click here . 

To view the complete transcript for the parish of Bramber, click here .

To find a particular surname on the spreadsheets, please use the “Find” facility in your web browser.

I am currently working on extracting data from the Surrey section and this will be available shortly.