Lies, damned lies, and statistics?? 1861 census

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I'm reasing an interesting book called The Victorians by A.N. Wilson.

This bit jumped our from the page as I don't have any brides under the age of 16 on my tree:

"The 1861 census shows that in Bolton 175 women married at fifteen or under, 179 in Burnley"

Bolton had a population of about 74,000 in 1861 and Burnley 22,000. I thought it surprising, therefore, theat the number of young brides showed to be about the same.

I was not about to sift through nearly 100,000 records to see what was revealed, so I thought I'd look at the people listed as "wife" on Ancestry in these two places. I realise very young brides would have been much more likely than other married women to be living in households headed by people other than their husband, and so might be found (or not found!) with relationships such as dau-in-law, daughter, boarder, lodger etc etc, but surely some would be in their husband's house? This is what I found:

Bolton Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but age on census page is 45!)
Aged 14 - 3 (but ages on census pages are 44, 44 and 41)
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - none

Burnley Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but is a son, not a wife on the census page)
Aged 14 - none
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - 1 (but age on census page is 42)

Total - none

I know that statistical info was extracted from the censuses, but I thought these were only published as country-wide figures. So, where did these figures of 175 and 179 come from?

[Little Nell]

Merry

I've read the book which is generally very interesting and well-researched. I'll fish it out later, but if you have it handy, does A.N. give a reference for this information?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Merry

This is a complete shot in the dark, but I wonder if the statistics from the 1861 were cross-referenced with local marriage records?

(AN Wilson has been known to make the odd mistake, I recall)

OC

[KiteRunner]

Shame you can't search on marital status on ancestry.
I'd be very surprised if all the figures extracted were country-wide, though. I'm sure I've seen references to statistics relating to a smaller area before.

I wonder if he has been looking at the age of the wife and the age of the oldest child, subtracted one from the other and then assumed the wife got married at whatever age she would be when that child was born? I do hope not!!

[KiteRunner]

You can search the 1861 census on marital status on findmypast (it's on the Advanced Search screen) and it only lists 2 married 15-yr-old girls in Bolton, and 4 aged 15 or younger in Burnley.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Oooh I didn't know you could do that Kite!

I wonder if any you found were the badly transcribed ones on Ancestry? (two of them could have been read as 14, but I think they were 44)

but if you have it handy, does A.N. give a reference for this information?

Yes, but when I went to the notes index, I could't find the one I wanted! lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

I keep looking up people mentioned in the book on the census!

I am frustrated that the woman who walked to London to see the Crystal Palace exhibition from Penzance, aged either 84 or over 100 (lol) doesn't seem to exist! lol (Mary Callinan)

[KiteRunner]

Oooh I didn't know you could do that Kite!

I wonder if any you found were the badly transcribed ones on Ancestry? (two of them could have been read as 14, but I think they were 44)

Umm, sorry, I didn't have time to check that.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I was only thinking outloud!

[samesizedfeet]

Well I'm suspect about the book after Merry let me know that one of my family was in it. I dug out my copy and checked the index to find that it is fact two of my family, with the same name, both indexed together. So anyone without as extensive a knowledge of Henry Labouchere as I would be amazed that he managed to become an MP in the 1840s when he was barely 10 years old

[samesizedfeet]

I wonder if they've referenced Daughter In Law as well and it's throwing up lots of stepdaughters

although one would hope A N WIlson would be clever enough to have researched the use of daughter in law well enough to know about this glitch

[KiteRunner]

I still reckon someone has gone through all the families subtracting the age of the oldest child from the age of the wife to get this figure. It would take ages to check, though!

[Pippa Doll]

Statistics are great - they can say whatever you want!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hmm - I wonder if he used the JSTOR publication "A good time to wed" - rough marriage statistics taken from the 1861 census?

Unfortunately, I cannot access the article but I bet he did!

EDIT - the first page is showing and the book was published in 1996, sp he probably didn't crib from that. It does mention that the Parish Registers of Bolton were used, along with the Registrar General's statistics.

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Mr Wilson's book was first published in 2002.

[Night Owl]

"Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science" (page 613) published 1865 has those stats. I don't know how they arrived at the figures though but presumably it was some sort of analysis after the census and cross referencing with GRO / parish records

Jackie

[Olde Crone Holden]

I wonder if the figure of 175 was for the DECADE and not for the year?

I mean, how many marriages altogether took place in 1861 out of a population of 70,000?

(Oooh, I've just realised I can answer that question myself - back in a mo! EDIT - no I can't, sorry!)

OC

[Little Nell]

The "facts" Merry found are on p.324 of AN Wilson's book, when he is discussing Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell, to whom he proposed when she was 11!

The notes for the chapter refer to a biography of Lewis Carroll by Morton Cohen, published in 1995, so you'd need to see the notes at the back of that book to see where these figures were from.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

*phones library*

In 1861 (Eng) there are 246 "wife" entries aged 12.

Taking bets on how many I have to look at before I find a real one!!

[Velma Dinkley]

I bought this book a while back and was going to buy his 'sequel' about 20th century history, until I read a review on Amazon (I think) saying that in it he made sweeping statements with no substance, which made them doubt the accuracy of his book on the Victorians....

[Little Nell]

I think that's unfair. I have read both books. He is a bit of a right-wing old fogey and sees the world through those eyes, but I don't think he had no substance behind his remarks. I thought the 20th century book less interesting than the Victorian one, though still very informative.

All books are written by humans and if they are researched, they are still researched by reading other books written by humans. Humans are very fallible.

There are also fewer people employed now to check facts and compile indexes, which is why more errors creep in.

As someone who used to proof-read a lot, I don't think I've ever read anything that doesn't have a typo, or a mistake, or a statement capable of being picked apart.

Not saying AN is always right, just that his books are well-written and if he makes any remarks that provoke his readers to think, that can only be a good thing.