henleycensus.info has been created by members of the Henley Census Group who have transcribed the census data for Henley-on-Thames and the eastern part of the parish of Rotherfield Greys for the census years 1841 - 1911.
As local residents, the transcribers know Henley and the surrounding villages. They tended to work on certain streets of an enumeration district over the range of census years. They became familiar with individual enumerator's handwriting and local family names giving them an advantage over the transcribers used for the well known commercial census websites for which double digit percentage error rates are usual.
Disabilities have been recorded; occupations have been categorised, allowing the butcher's, bakers and candlestick makers to be readily identified. Also, birthplaces have been checked against a gazetteer for over 90% of the entries and an Ordnance Survey grid reference assigned, locating these birthplaces to a 1km OS square. We believe that this database is the most accurate and useful source of data for family and social history research for the immediate Henley area.
The menu items above provide:
- An innovative Name Index facility for finding entries by surname matching exactly names in a list, or names that sound similar using Soundex or Metaphone matching. Alternatively entries can be found by street or district.
- A comprehensive Search facility allows searching to be done using almost any combination of data items
- The Population menu item considers the population in detail. The growth of Henley from 1881 to 1901 is evident, the number of buildings increasing by 40%, almost entirely in the "southern suburbs" in the parish of Rotherfield Greys whilst there was almost no growth in the working population. Included is a facility to identify the population of one or more streets. Bear in mind that street names often changed, and streets given "attractive" names by developers were absorbed into more mundane roads such as Reading Road
- The Occupations menu item allows the database to be analysed by 6 Classes, divided into 24 Groups, 80 Sub-groups and 414 Categories used in the 1881 census.
- Explore the Social History page for studies on various topics, including the population and its age distribution, the popularity of christian names, school attendance, what people did and where they came from.
The database is a valuable resource for family and social historians. Valerie Alasia was provided with information for her book Henley Union Workhouse: The Story of Townlands published by Brewin Books.
Journal No. 28, December 2014 published by the Henley-on-Thames Archaeological and Historical Group was devoted to the buildings and people of the North side of Friday Street. A short introductary article was included in the Journal whilst making the full document available on this website as a Social Study.See: http://www.henleycensus.info/friday_street_north.php
If you have a particular project and need help to obtain the data, please contact us.