How is the Census Organised?

Until 1841 Overseers of the Poor', assisted by tithingmen, constables, headboroughs, parish clergy and other officers of the peace recorded how many people lived in the parish and provide the numbers of births, deaths and marriages recorded in parish registers.

For the 1841 census the modern method of census organisation was adopted when responsibility in England and Wales passed to the Registrar General of England and Wales. Officers of the newly established registration service went to each household and requested them to complete a schedule. The information was then recorded in the 'Census Enumerators Book' for each Enumeration District.

A registration service was not established in Scotland until 1855 and the Registrar General for Scotland was made responsible for the census in 1860. Until the 1969 Northern Ireland Census Act census were taken under the authority of separate Acts of Parliament.

This system has continued largely unchanged. Today the country is divided into 115,000 Enumeration Districts. Each district contains about 200 households or 500 people and a temporary staff of 63,000 enumerators oversee one or two districts each. They are responsible for delivering the census forms and providing advice on how to complete them. Prior to 2001 the enumerator would also collect the forms from householders. In 2001 a postal return service was introduced and enumerators concentrated on collecting forms that had failed to be posted.