Households

Schedules were intended to be prepared by the head of each household. The 1841 census did not include relationship data so the head of a household can not be identified with certainty, but from 1851 the head of the household was assigned the relationship "Head". It might be assumed that from 1851 the number of households could be obtained from a count of the number of census entries with the relationship "Head". In some cases, the head of the household could be away from home at the time of the census and, very rarely, a single schedule included joint heads as in one particular case of heads of two schools sharing the same building. A more significant problem with this method of counting households is through not recording a relationship of "Head" to the residents of almshouses, which were independent households and usually treated as such.

Another measure of the number of households is the number of schedules with a habitation status of "Inhabited". Where two or, rarely, more households shared a building, the first schedule has a building count of "1" and subsequent schedules a building count of "0". This enables a count of both households and the number of households sharing a building to be determined. Significant problems arise with this method also through the inconsistent recording of lodgers and boarders through occasionally assigning lodgers and boarders a separate schedule..

1. Excluding lodger's family.

2. This is a count of schedules with building count of 0. The number of households sharing accommodation is approximately twice the number given in this table.

Households included significant numbers of lodgers and boarders, the distinction presumably being that a boarder was provided with food as well as lodging, but a lodger, sometimes accompanied by a family was not. There appears to have been no clear criteria to decide that a lodging family should or should not be assigned to a separate schedule. Even boarders were sometimes assigned a separate schedule. The lack of clear trends in these numbers is probably due to the guidance given to enumerators, or their interpretation of that guidance.

Commercial Lodging and Boarding Houses, Inns and Hotels were not specifically distinguished from family houses. It seems likely that a majority of lodgers and boarders were in commercial establishments, but detailed study of the context of each entry will be necessary for confirmation.

Buildings

From 1841 buildings were categorised as "Inhabited" or "Uninhabited" or "Building". It was not until 1901 that the additional category of "Uninhabited but in use" was introduced. Prior to 1901, it was impossible to decide whether an uninhabited building was an empty dwelling or a warehouse, workshop or lockup shop with nobody living on the premises, unless a clarifying comment had been entered into the enumerators book. In 1861 the census returns for West Hill included schedule 127 with the comment "Stabling" and schedule 131 with the comment "Coal shed" and in 1881 the census returns for Bell Street included schedule 87a with the comment "China Shop", schedule 87b with the comment "Grocers Shop" and schedule 87c with the comment "Clothes Shop". Such comments would usually only be entered if the building had its own separate schedule. This was rarely the case; uninhabited buildings were usually reported on the schedule of the preceding inhabited building. Click this link for a full list of uninhabited buildings.

The number of buildings in each habitation status is given in the following table and graph

The number of buildings changed little between 1841 and 1881, but then there was a building boom, the total number of buildings increasing by over 40% between 1881 and 1901. If the average time to build a house was 12 months then the number built over a ten year period between censuses would be ten times the number of houses shown as being built in each census. The Henley Cottage Improvement Association was responsible for rebuilding in the West Hill/Gravel Hill area, but the increase was mainly due to new build, particularly in the following areas:

The number of new builds exceeds the increase in the number of households, partly accounted for by the 35 houses being built and not yet occupied, a reduction of 66 in the number of households sharing, and a small reduction in inhabited buildings in the town centre

Number of buildings in each habitation status for each street

The following tables give the number of buildings in each habitation status for each street and census year

Total number of Buildings

Number of Buildings that are Occupied/Inhabited

Number of Buildings that are Unoccupied

Number of Buildings that are Not Inhabited but in use

Number of Buildings that are Under Construction

Changes for Groups of streets:

As developers built new houses, they chose attractive names for the developments that did not endure as street names, but were absorbed into a more recognised main street.To see how streets were developed, select one or more streets from the list. Pressing "SHIFT" with a click will select a block of streets. Pressing "CONTROL" with a click will add a single street to the selected streets. When selection is complete, click the "Extract data" button. This will present combined data for the selected group of streets.