The first modern census of the UK was taken on Sunday 6 June 1841. Four national census enumerations had been taken previously in 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831 but these had been purely numeric, except where names were collected locally as in St Hilary in 1801. The 1841 census was taken under the auspices of the General Register Office which had been set up in 1836 to manage civil registration – births, marriages and deaths. From the point of view of local history and genealogy this is a significant moment as it leads to the creation of unified indices of births, marriages and deaths from September quarter 1837. Just as important is the change the General Register Office brought to census collection – names, ages, households and occupation can be seen for the first time together with whether or not a person was born in county. This change is just a part of the trend at the time to diminish the role of the Parish and substitute agencies with specific roles.

It should be stressed that the data we have for 1841 does not come directly from the original schedules but from the Enumerators Books into which the original data was copied. Copying always introduces errors and these errors combined with erratic spellings of names and places can, on occasion, make individuals tricky to find. Below is a family living in Cockwells in 1841, not exactly chosen at random, I was looking for Susanna Trevorrow a few weeks ago:

White Cross,
1,Elizabeth Trevorrow,,60,,In county,
John Trevorrow,25,,Coper Miner,In county,
William Trevorrow,20,,Coper Miner,In county,
James Trevorrow,15,,Coper Miner,In county,
John Trevorrow,5,,,In county,
Susan Trevorrow,,30,Miner,In county,
Richard Trevorrow,40,,Miner,In county,

So you can see name, age, occupation and whether born in county. You can also see that errors have been introduced where the occupation has been listed as coper miner instead of copper miner. This example comes from the free Cornwall Online Census Project so the error could have been introduced anywhere along the way to the end-product on the website. Handwriting can also lead to problems in finding people so a bit of persistence and lateral thinking may be required. What is not given clearly in 1841 is the relationship between one person and another but you can see that they are all in the same household. What, for instance, is the relationship between John aged 5 and the others?

Susanna Trevorrow was a bal maiden who worked at Wheal Darlington in Ludgvan parish. In 1854 she was working on a burrow (waste heap) and it collapsed on her, killing her outright. She was buried in Ludgvan churchyard on 18 August 1854.

The table below shows population figures for the West Penwith parishes based upon the 1801-1841 census.

Source of data: relevant parish pages of Genuki

Cornwall data from Bernard Deacon, Population Change in Cornwall Since 1801

GB numbers from Vision of Britain

Free access to the 1841 census of Cornwall is here.

For a guide to the 1801 - 1831 Census look here. (does not include actual census data)