Census: A 6,000-year-old survey tool

A public awareness campaign was launched ahead of the 2011 Census in England and Wales next month.

The Daily Telegraph quoted Cabinet Minister Francis Maude last year, saying he believed the census was an expensive and inaccurate way of measuring the number of people in Britain.

An Office for National Statistics spokesman said: “There is a working group within the ONS that is looking at a project known as Beyond 2011 and it is up to that group to make a report. The report will go to ministers and then it will go the government to decide on what the future of the census is.”

The first known censuses were taken by the Babylonians nearly 6,000 years ago.The most famous census in history involved Jesus. The census order issued by Caesar Augustus brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

The first thorough survey of England was carried out in 1086 when William the Conqueror ordered a detailed list of land and property known as the Domesday Book.

The first official census in England and Wales took place in 1801 after Parliament passed the Census Act. The move followed the publication of the essay Principle Of Population in 1798 by Thomas Malthus. He believed that Britain would soon have more people than it could feed, leading to famine, disease and other disasters.

A census has been held every decade since 1801 except in 1941 because of World War II. A “mini-census” was held in 1939 so that everyone could be issued with a National Identity Card.

Before the 1951 census, women were asked to be more honest about their age. Many women felt that questions relating to their age were too personal.

An electronic computer was used for the first time in 1961 to process the census results. It took five and a half years to produce the full set of statistics.

In 2001 ­– the first time a voluntary question was asked about faith – almost 400,000 people claimed their religion was “Jedi”. This was in addition to almost 7,000 who said they were witches. The information from the census is used by government, local authorities, and the commercial sector in planning services. It is also a source for research by future generations including historians, genealogists and academics. There have been more than 386 million 1841-1901 census downloads from the National Archives since 2002.

The first information from the 2011 Census is expected to be released in 2012, consisting of population estimates by age and sex for each local authority area. More detailed statistics on the rest of the information in the questionnaire will be released in 2013.

The census this year is the biggest ever conducted but could also be the last.