Some Account of the Census, from 1801 to 1881

Extract

Prior to the commencement of the present century, no direct method had been adopted to ascertain the number of the population in England. Various estimates, founded upon Domesday Books, Subsidy Rolls, and payments of Hearth and Poll taxes furnish, with more or less exactness, the numbers at previous periods. Three such calculations relating to the population towards the close of the 17th century are mentioned by Macaulay as being entitled to peculiar attention. “Of these computations one was made in the year 1696 by Gregory King, Lancaster Herald, a political arithmetician of great acuteness and judgment. The basis of his calculations was the number of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the last collection of hearth money. The conclusion at which he arrived was that the population of England was nearly five millions and a half. About the same time, King William the Third was desirous to ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into which the community was divided. According to the reports laid before him from all the dioceses of the realm, the number of his English subjects must have been about 5,200,000. Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent still, subjected the parochial registers to all the tests which the modern improvements in statistical science enabled him to apply. His opinion was, that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the population of England was a little under 5,200,000 souls. … We may, therefore, with confidence pronounce that, when James the Second reigned, England contained between five million and five million five hundred thousand inhabitants.”