Pre-1841 Censuses & Population Listings in the British Isles

Book excerpt: "It has long been an article of faith that the census of 1841 was the first British census to list the names of individuals. In nearly 90 pages of text, accompanied by unique notes and references to original documents, Mr. Chapman explodes this myth by describing hundreds of pre-1841 name lists (censuses, poll lists, national surveys, tax lists, parish enumerations, etc.), explaining most of them, as far as possible, in their historical framework. As logic would dictate, the work follows a chronological pattern, and for this new fifth edition the author has appended, in Appendix I, a county-by-county breakdown of the various censuses containing individuals' names with the dates of those censuses; and for completeness, in Appendix II, he has added a list of decennial censuses containing names of individuals from 1801 to 1831. This new fifth edition, completely rewritten, incorporates over 200 additional listings for Ireland, making it a unique chronological account of censuses and enumerations in the British Isles from 1086 to 1841"--Publisher's description.