The Census Records of Leicester 1851–1911, Class and Society

Abstract

This article uses the census to study two streets in Leicester from 1851 to 1911, comparing them to each other and the rest of the country. These streets are New Walk, a middle-class street, and Welford Road, a working-class street. Twenty samples have been taken from each census and each street to create a representation of working- and middle-class Leicester. Information like age, relationship to the rest of the household, occupation and place of birth are used in this study to create a narrative on the city of Leicester at each census, and this information is compared to the situation in the rest of the country, found in secondary literature, to show that for the most part, Leicester does not follow the trends that other parts of the country do. Occupations are used to show the class of people living in Leicester and also gives insight into their lives, with women commonly working in the hosiery industry and boys living in New Walk often following in the footsteps of their father. The census is also used to show how it can give us insights into national situations and events, like the state of the economy or the decline of the old industries, to show how that affects Leicester and whether these events affect every place in Britain equally.