Introduction

1881

Set against a background of political turbulence overseas and the first Boer War, 1881 saw a remarkable number of positive developments in Britain, including schooling for all, rights for married women, transport revolutions and improved policing and crime detection.

The scope of the 1881 round of censuses, carried out on the night of 3 April, was generally the same as that of the previous censuses. A major Scottish innovation was to introduce a new definition of a house, which makes comparisons between earlier census reports difficult. According to the old definition used in 1871 there was an average of 12.22 people to each house, while the new definition in 1881 gave a figure of 5.04!

In Scotland a question that had been asked in 1871 on children’s education was omitted, and an additional question relating to the use of the Gaelic language was added. This revealed that some 6.3 per cent of Scotland’s inhabitants returned themselves as “habitually” speaking Gaelic.