Census
The British government took its first national census in 1801. A census has been taken every ten years since that date, except in 1941. The first genealogically useful census was not taken until 1841, when names were recorded.
 
The 1901 Census for England was taken on the night of 31 March 1901. The following information was requested: Name of street, avenue road, etc.; house number or name; whether or not the house was inhabited; number of rooms occupied if less than five; name of each person that had spent the night in that household; relationship of person enumerated to the head of the family; each person's marital status; age at last birthday (sex is indicated by which column the age is recorded in); each person's occupation; whether they are employer or employee or neither; person's place of birth; whether deaf, dumb, blind, or lunatic.
 
Enumeration forms were distributed to all households a couple of days before census night and the complete forms were collected the next day. All responses were to reflect the individual's status as of 31 March 1901 for all individuals who had spent the night in the house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of the details from the individual forms were later sorted and copied into enumerators' books, which are the records we can view images of today. The original householders schedules from 1841 to 1901 were destroyed.