Prisons census

[Lee Palmer]

Looking for some info .Did prisons fill out census in the late 1800s . Or did they just do their own .I've looked on the information highway but can't find anything. I'm sure someone must have asked this before.  Regards LEE

[rosie99]

Prisons were indexed often with peoples initials rather than full names

[Dundee]

Did prisons fill out census in the late 1800s . Or did they just do their own .

Did who just do their own?  Do you mean the individual prisoners?

Debra 

[stanmapstone]

The purpose of the censuses was to enumerate everyone in the country alive at mid-night on the day of the census, wherever they were, and institutions such as prisons, hospitals and asylums were included and if they were large enough had their own schedules.
Special 'Institutional Enumerators' Books' were sent to the various institutions. The heads of the Institutions enumerated the inmates and passed the books to the Census Office in London.

It was only in the 1861 Census that the initials of inmates, patients, prisoners, paupers in institutions needed to be returned, although some were shown by initials in later censuses. If you put 'Prisoner' in the 'Relationship to Head' box for the 1881 census in Ancestry, there are 26, 523, of these only 45 are shown by initials.  In 1871 the proportion of prisoners shown by initials was  higher, but even then it was only 392 out of a total of 27,651.


Stan

[Lee Palmer]

Thanks stanmapstone ,Rosie99, Dundee.  regards LEE

[rosie99]

Were you looking for someone in particular