Right skills. Personable. Social fit.

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (87) explores the occupations and genealogical background of those identified as the resort’s census enumerators in 1861 and 1871. It suggests that census officials selected enumerators who not only had the intellectual and human skills to do the job but who also fitted with the social profile of their respondents.

Victorian Bournemouth (87): background

Enumerators’ qualities

Enumerators had to cover a specified area within a day. They delivered a householder’s schedule, returning next day to collect it, aiding if necessary. For such a task, the man needed to fit this description: “intelligent, trustworthy, active, be able to write well, have some knowledge of arithmetic”. Furthermore, he should conduct himself in a civil and respectable manner. Most enumerators came from the same community as they audited. The requirement for literacy, numeracy, and respectability meant that few labourers received this assignment. For purposes of this study, a survey of enumerators for 1861 and 1871 took place for towns near Bournemouth: Christchurch, Poole, Wimborne, Blandford, and Cranborne. Damage to some of the documents has resulted in gaps, but, taken over both years, more than seventy names have emerged. Plausible identification has appeared for all but about a tenth. Analysis of their occupations shows similar patterns for each town.

Enumerators’ occupations

Retailers, artisans, and local government officials accounted for the three most frequent occupations. A second group consisted of farmers, accountants, and lawyers. At Blandford Forum, either lawyers or local government officials did most of the work. The latter included the workhouse master, an overseer, and a relieving officer, who enumerated in both years. Other places drew from a wider array of occupations. At Poole, for example, retailers provided almost half of the enumerators: several clerks, a chemist, a grocer, and a bookseller amongst them. Other enumerators included relieving officers, a rate collector, and accountants. Farmers featured amongst the enumerators at Cranborne, but so also did a thatcher, a schoolteacher, and a shoemaker. Several occupations appeared at Christchurch: artisans, retail, perhaps mariners of varied description, if correct identifications have happened for the latter. No local government officials played a role here, though. Thus, most enumerators came from all ranks except labourers.

Victorian Bournemouth (87): enumerators at Bournemouth

Numeracy and literacy

For 1861, the names of two enumerators for Greater Westover have survived: Isaac Dale, W. E. Rebbeck. The former, a field worker, had served as a farm bailiff. The latter built up Bournemouth’s main estate agency, but he also collected rates for the Improvement Commission. Handwriting analysis suggests that William Marshall, a bootmaker from Holdenhurst, also acted as enumerator this year. Ten years later, the growing population of the area required six enumerators. Plausible identifications have emerged for all. Their occupations consisted of bootmaker, upholsterer, rent collector, rate collector, bookshop manager, and ferryman. The numeracy and literacy required for the census would have featured in their working lives. The combination of local businessmen and officials matches the pattern found elsewhere. Thus, even though Bournemouth’s economy remained more basic than in most of the neighbouring towns, it contained enough people who qualified to act as enumerators.

Human skills

The bootmaker and the ferryman grew up and lived in the area around Holdenhurst and Wick. For their businesses to prosper, they would have needed to know people and apply positive social skills. This required acting in a civil and respectable fashion. The other enumerators, although immigrants, had had experiences which qualified them on this second requirement. James Philo’s father kept a grocery and served as parish clerk. John Freer helped in his sister’s grocery, but, as a soldier in the Life Guards, he had experienced enforced socialisation. Frank Cuff would have had a similar experience at his boarding school in Wilton. Cuff’s work as a rate collector in Christchurch would have brought him into contact with many people, where success needed tact. The same applies to Henry Aish, a rent collector. As local inhabitants, all, except Cuff, would have known their designated census districts and the population well.

Victorian Bournemouth (87): macro factors

Mutual trust

Census documents show that William Marshall acted as enumerator for 1871 and 1881. Handwriting analysis, however, suggests that he had collected the census for 1851 and 1861 also. An exploration of his life, genealogy, and career has appeared elsewhere. During Victorian times, his family name appeared many times, a nexus containing several artisans stretching across rural Greater Westover. A niece’s husband appears to have acted as an enumerator 1871-1891. Thus, officials found William Marshall a suitable person to have administered the census in his area for at least forty years. This suggests that Marshall had accrued an established, lasting civic prominence and trust within the area. Such a combination would have persuaded people to share their personal information with him. Many, perhaps, had bought footwear made by him. Many, also, would have belonged to his family’s kinship and commercial network. Thus, the data he collected may have had good accuracy.

Social fit

Often, the enumerator would have dealt face-to-face with his respondents. For Bournemouth’s affluent visitors he might have had to obtain access through the domestic staff. Nevertheless, to ensure accuracy, perhaps by checking details, interplay between affluent people and the enumerator might occur. The social match between William Marshall and his district appears to have applied elsewhere for Bournemouth’s 1871 census. The ferryman, Eli Miller, had only rural and urban labourers to record. The affluent visitors staying in the Exeter Park area, however, had a different type of enumerator: James Philo, the bookstore manager. Similar types of people staying in Westover Villas went onto the recording sheets of Henry Aish, the rent-collector. He seems a person comfortable and confident with inter-personal dynamics. During his life he worked as a miller, rent-collector, lodginghouse-keeper, and verger. Such matching seems beyond coincidence, suited for providing accurate data to the census officials.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (87) has explored the social profile of enumerators who worked at Bournemouth for the census of 1861 and 1871. Their occupations appear comparable to those found for contemporary enumerators working in neighbouring towns. This analysis suggests that, in addition to finding men who had the appropriate academic and human skills, some attempt at social matching between enumerator and respondents may have occurred.

References

For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). Thanks also to the former as source of the graphic used.