The 1901 Census for Wales
The 1901 Census for Wales was taken on the night of 31 March 1901. The following
information was requested:
Name of street, avenue road, etc.;
house number
or name;
whether or not the house was inhabited;
number of rooms
occupied if less than five;
name of each person that had
spent the night in that
household;
relationship of person enumerated to the
head of the family;
each person's
marital status;
age at last birthday (sex is indicated
by which column the age is recorded in);
each person's occupation;
whether
they are employer
or employee or neither;
person's place of birth;
whether deaf, dumb,
blind, or lunatic. Some of this information
may be recorded in Welsh or English.
Enumeration forms were distributed to all households a couple of
days before census night and the complete forms were collected the
next day. All responses were to reflect the individual's status as
of 31 March 1901 for all individuals who had spent the night in the
house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated
at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of
the details from the individual forms were later sorted and copied
into enumerators' books, which are the records we can view images
of today. The original householders schedules from 1841 to 1901 were
destroyed.
Census returns were collected according to registration district.
These returns were divided into sub-districts and assigned consecutive
piece numbers for reference purposes. The piece numbers begin in
London with number one and work roughly south to north, followed
by the Welsh districts and then the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
You will find the piece number on a paper strip at the bottom of
every image, following the PRO class number. There may be hundreds
of pieces within a county.
In addition to the piece number, each page of the returns includes
a folio number and/or a page number. The folio number was stamped
onto every other page before microfilming and is located in the upper
right hand corner of the image. Folio numbering usually starts over
at the beginning of each piece. The page number is part of the printed
form and is found on every page in the upper right hand corner. The
page numbers start over at the beginning of every enumeration district.
A full reference number for a record in the 1901 census includes
the PRO class number (RG13), the piece number, the folio number,
and the page number. Keep in mind that you may have to look at several
enumeration districts to find the page you want within a given folio
since the page numbers start over with every ED.
The clerks who compiled and reviewed the census data made a variety
of marks on the returns. Unfortunately, many of these tally marks
were written over personal information and some fields, such as ages,
can be difficult to read as a result. More useful marks include a
single slash between households within a building and a double slash
separating households in separate buildings.
