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Census of places of worship and sittings, and of church and Sunday school attendance; cost and funding of Anglican churches and livings (2541)


Type of Data: Census of places of worship and sittings, and of church and Sunday school attendance; cost and funding of Anglican churches and livings (2541)

Faith Community: Christianity, Judaism

Date: 1851, 30 March

Geography: Great Britain

Sample Size: 37862

Population: Places of worship

Keywords: Accommodation, church attendance, churchgoing, finance, places of worship, sittings, Sunday school

Collection Method: Self-completion questionnaire, filled in by the minister or official responsible for each place of worship or, on their default, by an informant

Collection Agency: Census Office

Sponsor: Home Office

Survey Instrument: Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship, England and Wales, pp. clxxii-clxxvi; Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship and Education, Scotland, pp. 102-5; Clive Douglas Field, 'Non-Recurrent Christian Data', Religion, Reviews of United Kingdom Statistical Sources, Vol. 20, ed. Wynne Frederick Maunder, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987, pp. 482-7

Published Source:

  • The National Archives, Home Office Papers 129
  • Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship, England and Wales - Report and Tables, London: printed by George E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1853 (Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, Session 1852-53, Vol. 89, reprinted in the Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers, Population, 10, 1970)
  • Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship in England and Wales, Abridged from the Official Report Made by Horace Mann, Esq. to George Graham, Esq., Registrar-General, London: G. Routledge and Co., [1854]
  • Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship and Education, Scotland - Report and Tables, London: printed by George E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1854 (Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, Session 1854, Vol. 59, reprinted in the Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers, Population, 11, 1970)
  • George Graham, 'Memorandum on the Objections Urged Against the Accuracy of the Census Returns of Religious Worship', 19 July 1854, The National Archives, Home Office Papers 45/5786
  • Horace Mann, 'On the Statistical Position of Religious Bodies in England and Wales', Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 18, 1855, pp. 141-59
  • Thomas Thorburn, Diagrams Exhibiting Comparatively the Strength of the Various Religious Denominations, as Shewn by the (1) Number of Churches, (2) Number of Sittings, (3) Attendance, Made Up From the Census Returns, 1851, and Other Relative Subjects, Edinburgh: the author, 1855
  • Abraham Hume, Remarks on the Census of Religious Worship for England and Wales, with Suggestions for an Improved Census in 1861 and a Map Illustrating the Religious Condition of the Country, London: Longman, Green, Longman &
  • Roberts, 1860
  • The Times, 11 July 1860, 22 July 1870
  • Vivian David Lipman, 'A Survey of Anglo-Jewry in 1851', Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Vol. 17, 1951-52, pp. 171-88
  • Kenneth Stanley Inglis, 'Patterns of Religious Worship in 1851', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 11, 1960, pp. 74-86
  • William Stuart Frederick Pickering, 'The 1851 Religious Census: A Useless Experiment?', British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1967, pp. 382-407
  • David Michael Thompson, 'The 1851 Religious Census: Problems and Possibilities', Victorian Studies, Vol. 11, 1967-68, pp. 87-97
  • Donald J. Withrington, 'The 1851 Census of Religious Worship and Education, with a Note on Church Accommodation in Mid-19th-Century Scotland', Records of the Scottish Church History Society, Vol. 18, 1972-74, pp. 133-48
  • The Ecclesiastical Census, March 1851, Bedfordshire, ed. David W. Bushby, Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, Vol. 54, Luton: the Society, 1975, pp. 109-92, 196-200
  • The Religious Census of 1851: A Calendar of the Returns Relating to Wales, Volume I, South Wales, ed. Ieuan Gwynedd Jones and David Williams, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976
  • David Michael Thompson, 'The Religious Census of 1851', The Census and Social Structure: An Interpretative Guide to Nineteenth Century Censuses for England and Wales, ed. Richard Lawton, London: Frank Cass, 1978, pp. 241-86
  • Lincolnshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship, 1851, ed. Rodney William Ambler, Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, Vol. 72, [Lincoln]: the Society, 1979
  • Bruce Ivor Coleman, The Church of England in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: A Social Geography, Historical Association Pamphlet, General Series, No. 98, London: the Association, 1980
  • The Religious Census of 1851: A Calendar of the Returns Relating to Wales, Volume II, North Wales, ed. Ieuan Gwynedd Jones, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1981
  • Bruce Ivor Coleman, 'Southern England in the Census of Religious Worship, 1851', Southern History, Vol. 5, 1983, pp. 154-88
  • David M. Butler, 'Places of Worship in the National Census of 1851', Journal of the Friends' Historical Society, Vol. 55, 1983-89, pp. 25-34
  • Church and Chapel in Oxfordshire, 1851: The Return of the Census of Religious Worship, ed. Kate Tiller, Oxfordshire Record Society, Vol. 55, [Oxford]: the Society, 1987
  • Religion in Victorian Nottinghamshire: The Religious Census of 1851, ed. Michael Robert Watts, University of Nottingham Centre for Local History Record Series, Vol. 7, Nottingham: University of Nottingham Department of Adult Education, 1988, 2 vol.
  • The Religious Census of Sussex, 1851, ed. John Ashley Vickers, Sussex Record Society, Vol. 75, Lewes: the Society, 1989
  • Devon in the Religious Census of 1851: A Transcript of the Devon Section of the 1851 Church Census, ed. Michael John Longthorne Wickes, Appledore: the editor, 1990
  • Buckinghamshire Returns of the Census of Religious Worship, 1851, ed. Edward Legg, Buckinghamshire Record Society, Vol. 27, Aylesbury: the Society, 1991
  • Keith D. M. Snell, Church and Chapel in the North Midlands: Religious Observance in the Nineteenth Century, University of Leicester Department of English Local History Occasional Papers, Fourth Series, 3, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991
  • The Religious Census of Hampshire, 1851, ed. John Ashley Vickers, Hampshire Record Series, Vol. 12, Winchester: Hampshire County Council, 1993
  • Paul Spencer Ell and Terry R. Slater, 'The Religious Census of 1851: A Computer-Mapped Survey of the Church of England', Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 20, 1994, pp. 44-61
  • Clive Douglas Field, 'Methodism in the 1851 Religious Census of England and Wales: A Methodological Reappraisal', Methodism in its Cultural Milieu: Proceedings of the Centenary Conference of the Wesley Historical Society in Conjunction with the World Methodist Historical Society, Held 26-30 July 1993 in Cambridge, England, ed. Timothy Stuart-Alexander Macquiban, Oxford: Applied Theology Press, 1994, pp. 169-90
  • The Derbyshire Returns to the 1851 Religious Census, eds Margery Tranter in collaboration with David Anthony Barton and Paul Spencer Ell, Derbyshire Record Society, Vol. 23, Chesterfield: the Society, 1995
  • Religion in Hertfordshire, 1847 to 1851, ed. Judith Burg, Hertfordshire Record Publications, Vol. 11, Hitchin: the Society, 1995
  • John Ashley Vickers, The 1851 Religious Census, Short Guides to Records, No. 45, London: Historical Association, 1995, reprinted in Short Guides to Records, Second Series, Guides 25-48, ed. Kathryn M. Thompson, London: Historical Association, 1997, pp. 109-13
  • Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and Laurence R. Iannaccone, 'Pluralism and Piety: England and Wales, 1851', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 34, 1995, pp. 431-44
  • Michael Beale, 'The Religious Census of Essex, 1851', Essex 'Full of Profitable Thinges': Essays Presented to Sir John Ruggles, ed. Kenneth Neale, Oxford: Leopard's Head Press, 1996, pp. 55-73
  • Suffolk Returns from the Census of Religious Worship of 1851, ed. T. C. B. Timmins, Suffolk Records Society, Vol. 39, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997
  • The 1851 Religious Census: Surrey, transcribed by Cliff Webb and ed. David Robinson, Surrey Record Society, Vol. 35, Guildford: the Society, 1997
  • Religious Worship in Norfolk: The 1851 Census of Accommodation and Attendance at Worship, eds. Janet Ede and Norma Virgoe, Norfolk Record Society, Vol. 62, Norwich: the Society, 1998
  • Alasdair Charles Crockett, 'A Secularising Geography? Patterns and Processes of Religious Change in England and Wales, 1676-1851', University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis, 1998
  • Religious Worship in Kent: The Census of 1851, ed. Margaret Roake, Kent Archaeological Society, Kent Records, Vol. 27, Maidstone: the Society, 1999
  • Census of Religious Worship, 1851: The Returns for Worcestershire, ed. John Aitken, Worcestershire Historical Society, New Series, Vol. 17, [no place]: printed for the Society by J. W. Arrowsmith, 2000
  • Yorkshire Returns of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, Volume 1: Introduction, City of York and East Riding, ed. John R. Wolffe, University of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, Borthwick Texts and Calendars, Vol. 25, York: the Institute, 2000
  • Keith D. M. Snell, and Paul Spencer Ell, Rival Jerusalems: The Geography of Victorian Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000
  • John Aitken, 'Never Before, Yet Never Again: Birmingham in the 1851 Religious Census', Birmingham Historian, No. 22, 2002, pp. 24-9
  • Geoffrey Robson, Dark Satanic Mills? Religion and Irreligion in Birmingham and the Black Country, Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2002
  • 'The Returns of the Rutland Registration Districts to the 1851 Census of Religious Worship', ed. Peter Tomalin, Rutland Record, Vol. 22, 2002, pp. 51-86, Vol. 24, 2004, pp. 169-74
  • Cynthia Doxey, 'The Church in Britain and the 1851 Religious Census', Mormon Historical Studies, Vol. 4, 2003, pp. 107-38
  • Church and Chapel in Early Victorian Shropshire: Returns from the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, ed. Clive Douglas Field, Shropshire Record Series, Vol. 8, Keele: Centre for Local History, University of Keele, 2004
  • Evva C. Benson and Cynthia Doxey, 'The Ecclesiastical Census of 1851 and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', Local Historian, Vol. 34, 2004, pp. 66-79
  • Alasdair Charles Crockett, 'Churchgoing Rates in Nineteenth-Century England: Supply-Side Deficiency or Demand-Led Decline?', Patterns and Processes of Religious Change in Modern Industrial Societies, eds. Alasdair Charles Crockett and Richard O'Leary, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, pp. 13-49
  • Yorkshire Returns of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, Volume 2: West Riding (North), ed. John R. Wolffe, University of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, Borthwick Texts and Studies, Vol. 31, York: the Institute, 2005
  • Yorkshire Returns of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, Volume 3: West Riding (South), ed. John R. Wolffe, University of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, Borthwick Texts and Studies, Vol. 32, York: the Institute, 2005
  • Alasdair Charles Crockett, 'Rural-Urban Churchgoing in Victorian England', Rural History, Vol. 16, 2005, pp. 53-82
  • Alan Frederick Munden, 'The Religious Census of Cheltenham in 1851', Cheltenham Local History Society Journal, No. 21, 2005, pp. 36-50
  • Alan Frederick Munden, 'The Religious Census of Cheltenham in 1851', Cheltenham Local History Society Journal, No. 21, 2005, pp. 36-50
  • Alasdair Charles Crockett and Robin Crockett, 'Consequences of Data Heaping in the British Religious Census of 1851', Historical Methods, Vol. 39, 2006, pp. 24-46
  • John R. Wolffe, 'Elite and Popular Religion in the Religious Census of 30 March 1851', Elite and Popular Religion, eds. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory, Studies in Church History, Vol. 42, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006, pp. 360-71
  • The 1851 Religious Census of Northamptonshire, ed. Graham S. Ward, Northampton: Northamptonshire Record Society, 2007
  • John R. Wolffe, 'The 1851 Census and Religious Change in Nineteenth-Century Yorkshire', Northern History, Vol. 45, 2008, pp. 71-86
  • Berkshire Religious Census, 1851, ed. Kate Tiller, Berkshire Record Society, Vol. 14, Reading: the Society, 2010
  • The Religious Census of 1851: Northumberland and County Durham, ed. Alan Munden, Publications of the Surtees Society, Vol. 216, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012
  • The 1851 Census of Religious Worship: Church, Chapel, and Meeting Place in Mid Nineteenth-Century Warwickshire, ed. Keith Geary, Publications of the Dugdale Society, Vol. 47, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Society, 2014
  • The Religious Census of Bristol and Gloucestershire, 1851, ed. Alan Frederick Munden, Gloucestershire Record Series, Vol. 29, Gloucester: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2015
  • Religious Life in Mid-19th Century Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire: The Returns for the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, ed. David Michael Thompson, Cambridgeshire Records Society, Vol. 21, Cambridge: the Society, 2014

    BRIN ID: 2541

    Remarks:

    The original returns from the 1851 religious census have only survived for England and Wales (not for Scotland), and then with some gaps. The published literature on the census is substantial, and only a proportion is referenced here. Further works are listed in Clive Douglas Field, ‘The 1851 Religious Census: A Select Bibliography of Materials Relating to England and Wales’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Vol. 41, 1977-78, pp. 175-82, The 1851 Religious Census of Great Britain: A Bibliographical Guide for Local and Regional Historians, Salisbury: British Association for Local History, 1999, and ‘Recent Publications on the 1851 Religious Census of England and Wales’, comprising Appendix 2 in Religious Statistics in Great Britain: An Historical Introduction, at http://www.brin.ac.uk/commentary/drs/appendix2/index.html. For discussion of methodological and interpretative challenges of the census, see Clive Douglas Field, ‘Non-Recurrent Christian Data’, Religion, Reviews of United Kingdom Statistical Sources, Vol. 20, ed. Wynne Frederick Maunder, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987, pp. 231-3, 245, 288-90

    Posted by: Clive D. Field

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