Today marks the arrival of the 1921 Census returns, for England and Wales, on Ancestry.co.uk. Of course, the 1921 returns have been available since January 2022 when the National Archives gave the initial three-year contract to publish them, to Find My Past, who were the highest bidders for the contract. Now that the contract has come to an end, Ancestry and other search sites, can have access to publish them to their subscribers. It was annoying for the past three years to have to subscribe to two family history search sites, but it has been a price worth paying.
In Scotland, the 1921 returns have been accessible on Scotland’s People, the official site for accessing the statutory records from the National Records of Scotland. You are required to have a login for Scotland’s People but there is no subscription. Instead, you need to purchase credits and then use these to view a record that you are searching for. This can be expensive if you make mistakes in your search and chose to see a record that has nothing to do with your family. The best way to search, with mistakes, and not pay for them is to book a computer place either in Glasgow or Edinburgh (and now in Kilmarnock) and pay £15 for the day. This enables you to view as many records as you wish.
To celebrate the universal access to the 1921 returns in England and Wales, I am going to use this week’s post to sample several returns relating to the families that I write about.
First, some advice on finding the 1921 Census on Ancestry. Although Ancestry has been announcing the arrival of the 1921 records during the past week, the front page does not give you an idea that it has arrived. You must go into the Census search page and in the right-hand panel scroll down to search in card index. Click there and you will see the new Census returns there.
I started with the Welsh records because I wanted to revisit the records of my Great Uncles, Frederic and George.
Fred Francis, 1921 Census return (National Archives via Ancestry.co.uk)
Just two lines of information that tell us so much more. Frederic and his wife, Minnie, were living at 132 Charles Street in Tredegar, a town in the centre of the Welsh coal mining valleys. Fred and his brother George had fled London, for reasons still factually unknown by me and members of their Welsh family, to become members of the coal mining fraternity. In this Census return, Fred and Minnie lived alone in a terraced house in a street where close by lived the Bevan family. Nye Bevan also worked in the mines. He introduced Fred and George into an exclusive debating society, known as the Query Club. Fred remained an active member of the Labour Party throughout his life. He described himself as a Miner, but the Census enumerator crossed that out and put Collier instead. Fred then with shrewd honesty, under the heading employed by, wrote Locked Out. Although again the enumerator pencilled in the letters TIC which stood for Tredegar Iron Company, the owners of the coal mine that Fred worked in. During the First World War, all coal mines were nationalised for the benefit of the war effort. After the war, the Government returned them to their former owners. The Tredegar Iron Company was not alone in telling their workers that they would be given new contracts on reduced wages. The workers went on strike but the mine owners locked the gates and waited until, after a lack of support from other trade unions, the miners began to return to work. Eventually Fred left the mine and became a Clerk with the Town Council, a post he kept for the rest of his life. Fred and Minnie had no children and lived their lives out in a flat at the rear of the Willows Community Centre in Church Street, Tredegar.
Detail from 1921 Census return showing that Fred was a Collier, locked out from the Tredegar Iron Company (TIC) during the miner’s strike after the First World War.
George, Fred’s younger brother was 34 and he was married to Flossie, who was Minnie’s younger sister. George’s Census return is almost the same as Fred’s, except for two facts. Whereas Fred was a Colliery Haulier, hauling the coal from the coal face to the lift shaft, George was a described as a Hewer, working with an axe and hammer at the coal face. He also was Locked Out. The other fact was that in 1921 George and Flossie had a daughter, Freda, aged two and four months. They were also living in the same house at 132 Charles Street as Fred and Minnie. George remained in Charles Street for most of his life. The 1939 Register for England and Wales, not a Census but very similar, used at the outbreak of the Second World War to identify those who were of conscription age and who were alien, shows that he and Florence (Flossie) were living at 104 Charles Street, with their daughter Marion. There is also someone else in their family, but at the time that the 1939 register was transcribed, the line had been redacted because the person was still alive at the time it was published online. This was John, born in 1931 and who died in 2006. George, in 1939 had left the mining industry and was then a Retail Greengrocer, operating from a large garage at the back of his house.
Four records, the 1921 Census and 1939 Register, give me sufficient factual information, together with conversations and correspondence from my cousin in Tredegar, to paint a really fascinating history of two Great Uncles who I never knew and who my grandmother and mother possibly knew nothing about.
So, where was my mother, Grace Wilcox, while Fred and George were living their new lives in Wales?
Grace Wilcox, 1921 Census return (National Archives via Ancestry.co.uk)
Here she is in West Green Road, Haringey, in north London. Grace is living with her parents who are managers of a branch of Bennetts Dairies. It seems to be a large property because William and Grace Wilcox, my grandparents, have several boarders. Grace’s sister Alice and her husband William Thomson, a Carpenter, working for the building firm Shillitoes, are lodging with them at number 307. Also boarding in the house are two sisters, Ada Clack who at the age of 29 was described as “left business for prospective marriage”. I’m not sure who she was working for, my grandparents or, like her sister, May, aged 17, at Bennetts head office at 547 Green Lanes. May was described as a Clerk. My mother, Grace was aged 6 and at was at school. She was born in Acton in 1915 when William, her father, was working as a Dairyman. Working as managers for a branch of Bennetts is a significant step up for the Wilcox family.
What intrigues me with this Census return, is where my mother’s sister, Renee, is. She was born in May 1919 and therefore would have been about two years old. The return form was completed by my grandfather, and I would have been surprised given the completeness of the information that he would have left his youngest daughter out. A search of Renee in the Census returns does not show that she was living or staying as a visitor with anyone else. So, Renee was either at home and forgotten to be included or was with a relative and not included by them.
Meanwhile, in Surrey, my father’s family were living in School Lane, Oxted.
George Carver and his family in the 1921 Census return (National Archives via Ancestry.co.uk)
My grandfather, Clarence Carver, had completed the form and had presented his name to show that he was known as George Carver. He was working as a Bricklayers Labourer. I’m uncertain for how long he did this. He had just returned from active service in India with the Queens Regiment. I do know that he became a Bus Inspector with London Transport for the rest of his life. London Transport started in 1933. He may have been working with another bus company that became amalgamated with LT.
Clarence George Sydney Carver wanted officially to be known as George Carver
In George Carver’s household were my grandmother who was a Caretaker at the Oxted Church of England School. Her three children, my father, William was aged 9, his two brothers, John aged 7 and Kenneth aged 4, were all listed. The three brothers would have been at the village school that my grandmother was working in. What I never knew before this Census return was made available was my grandmother had been a caretaker at the school.
The Census returns from 1841 onwards have always been a mine of information from which to make connections and piece a family story together. The 1921 return is special because of the amount of information and accuracy in reporting by the householder completing it. So close to our time, albeit over 100 years ago. The most recent Census, in 2021 was completed largely online. In one hundred years there will be few if any handwritten returns. No signatures to bring a relative alive for us.
1921 was the last Census year until 1951. This is because the 1931 Census returns were destroyed by fire in 1942, completely unrelated to the war. Although the 1931 Census returns for Scotland are kept safe in Edinburgh and will be released in 2031.
The 1939 Register of England Wales was similar to a Census, but it only recorded location, age, names and occupation to enable the Government to identify aliens, and also to identify people fit for conscription and women for land and factory work,and plan for rationing.
This means that research into my English and Welsh relatives is dependant upon other sources and from contacts made online who might also be researching the same family and have more detail to share.
I must wait patiently for another six years before accessing my Scottish family records of 1931.
More detailed information regarding the Census and some of the details that it shone light on with regards to national data and trends can be found here:
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