trade, manufacture or industry, or (c)
other than these two. The results, which were not satisfactory, were
published without comment. Ten years later, the chief alteration in the
inquiry was the substitution of the main occupation of the family for
that of the individual. The report on this census contained a very
valuable exposition of the difficulties involved in such operations and
the numerous sources of error latent in an apparently simple set of
questions. In 1821 an attempt to get a return of ages was made, but it
was not repeated in 1831, when the attention of the enumerators was
concentrated upon greater detail in the occupation record. Their efforts
were successful in getting a better, but still far from complete result.
The creation, in 1834, of poor law unions, and the establishment, in
1836, of civil registration districts, as a rule coterminous with them,
provided a new basis for the taking of a census, and the operations in
1841 were made over accordingly to the supervision of the
registrar-general and his staff. The inquiry was extended to the sex,
age and occupation of every individual; those born in the district were
distinguished from others, foreigners being also separately returned.
The number of houses inhabited, uninhabited and under construction
respectively, was noted in the return. The parish statement of births,
deaths and marriages was sent up by the clergy for the last time. The
most important innovation, however, was the transfer of the
responsibility for filling up the schedule from the overseers to the
householders, thereby rendering possible a synchronous record.

With some modification in detail, the system then inaugurated has been
since maintained. In 1851 the relationship to the head of the family,
civil condition, and the blind and deaf-mute were included in the
inquiry. On this occasion, the act providing for the census was
interpreted to authorize the collection of details regarding
accommodation in places of public worship and the attendance thereat, as
well as corresponding information about educational establishments. A
separate report was published on the former subject which proved
something of a storm centre. The census of 1871 obtained for the first
time a return of persons of unsound mind not confined in asylums. During
the next ten years, the separate areas for which population returns had
to be prepared were seriously multiplied by the creation of sanitary
districts, t