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INTERIM REPORT


TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR WILLIAM VERNON HARCOURT, Q.C., M.P.,

HER MAJESTY'S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT.



CENSUS OFFICE,           
EDINBURGH, 29th June 1881.

MY LORD,

The Census (Scotland) Act 1880, 43 and 44 Vict. cap. 38, directed that In the course of the week ending on Saturday the second day of April 1881, the Schedules prepared under the direction of the Secretary of State, should be left at every house in Scotland, in order that the householders and other inhabitants should furnish the particulars required for the Census, regarding the name, sex, age, rank, profession or occupation, condition, relation to the head of the family, and birth-place of every living person who abode in every house on the night of Sunday the third day of April, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, and also whether any were blind, or deaf and dumb, or imbecile or lunatic.

The Enumerators collected the Schedules, so filled up, on Monday the fourth day of April, and copied all the particulars into the Enumeration Books, which, with the Schedules and other documents, were handed to the Local Registrars, who, after revising the work of the Enumerators, prepared Summaries of each district. These Summaries, together with all the Enumeration and Memorandum Books, were then sent to the Sheriffs of Counties, and to the Chief Magistrates of the Eight Principal Towns of Scotland, on or before the twenty-third day of April, and were by these authorities transmitted to the Registrar-General in Edinburgh, on or before the fourth day of May. The Householders' Schedules were, on or before the twenty-third day of April, forwarded direct by the Registrars to the Registrar-General, without the intervention of Sheriffs or Magistrates.

The following Tables have been prepared in this Office from the Summaries sent in by the Local Registrars, and the numbers which they exhibit, although approximately correct, will no doubt hereafter acquire more precision when the systematic revision of the details of the Census which is now proceeding in this Department is completed. To the numbers contained in the Registrars' Summaries, the returns relative to shipping made by the officers of Her Majesty's Customs have been added, but these returns contain no enumeration of the seamen belonging to Her Majesty's Navy who at the date of Census were stationed in Scotland or were serving on Scottish waters.

In two important particulars the Householders' Schedules and Registrars' Summaries differ from those which were used at the Census of 1871. In the first place, they give no information whatever regarding the number and ages of children receiving education, beyond what may be extracted from their designations in the occupation columns to be hereafter published when the detailed Census Report is issued. In the second place, the definition of a "house" in the present Scottish Census is not the same as that observed in England, or even as that used in the last Census of Scotland. We now reckon as a SEPARATE HOUSE (1) every dwelling with a distinct Outside Entrance from a street, court, lane, road, &c., or (2) with a door opening directly into a Common Stair ; but any such dwelling, if subdivided and occupied by different families, is reckoned as only a single house. In consequence of this new definition some of the details of the present Census will not be easily compared with those arrived at in the course of former enumerations of houses; and it is only natural to expect that the number of houses, according to the more recent definition (which probably most Scotchmen will prefer), will be far in excess of what it would have been had the old definition been adhered to.

The populations of Civil and Registration Counties are stated in separate Tables, and have not been arrived at without much labour. It must be noted that the districts of the Registrars whose Summaries are at our disposal, differ widely in very many instances from the more familiar division of the country into Civil Parishes and Counties; and this circumstance has required careful revision of all, and much correction of some of the Summaries.

In the Returns made for the Census 1881, a special numeration of persons who profess themselves as in the habit of speaking Gaelic is to be made; but the Summaries convey no information on this subject, and it is impossible to state even approximately the results of such numeration till the details of the Census are published "in extensor."

The information now in our possession enables us to state that, at the Census of the current year, the population of all Scotland, including the seamen belonging to the mercantile shipping in Scottish ports or on Scottish waters, amounted to 3,734,441 persons, of whom 1,797,592 were males, and 1,936,849 females.

Comparison with the Census numbers of 1871 shows an increase of 194,449 males, and 179,974 females, or a total increase of 374,423 persons in ten years. Hence there has been in the course of the last ten years an increase of 11.1 per cent. in the amount of the population of Scotland, or a male increase of 12.1 per cent., and a female increase of 10.2 per cent.

Consequently it appears that during the last decennium the population of all Scotland has been augmented in a ratio exceeding that observed in any decennial period since 1821-31.

It is not proposed to take any notice in this Interim Report of the influence of emigration on the Scottish population: firstly, because our information regarding it is confined to the enumeration at a few ports of the United Kingdom, of professing emigrants of declared nationality; secondly, because there exist no means of ascertaining the number of persons born in Scotland who change their domicile by settling in England or in Ireland; thirdly, because we have no knowledge whatever of the compensating amount of immigration from any part of the world; fourthly, because discussion of the subject of emigration is not invited by the data presented to us by the Census, and is, we think, more appropriately reserved for the Registrar-General's Annual and Detailed Annual Reports; and lastly, because the emigration from the different divisions of the United Kingdom may be studied by those whom it concerns in the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General for England, which embody such details as are contributed by the Reports of the Emigration Commissioners and of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade.

Of late years the Registrar-General for Scotland has been in the habit of publishing much tabular information regarding the population of Scotland considered as divided into Five Groups, residing, in the Eight Principal Towns at Census 1871,—in the Large Towns; in the Small Towns; in the Mainland-Rural Districts; and in the Insular-Rural Districts.

Besides offering some general information relative to the movement of the population in each of these groups during the past decennium, the present Interim Report contains some particulars regarding the recent progress of each of the Eight Principal Towns, from which it may be inferred that the rate of increase of some of them has varied remarkably of late. In the case of Glasgow, for instance, the total increase of the population during the last decennium has amounted to only 4.0 per cent.; while in Paisley during the same period the increase has been 15.3 per cent., and in Leith no less than 31.73 per cent.



TABLE I . comprises the numbers of the Population, distinguishing the Sexes, of the Families, of Houses, and of Rooms with one or more windows, in SCOTLAND, in its EIGHT DIVISIONS, and its thirty-three CIVIL COUNTIES, on the 4th April 1881. The numbers include the Military in Barracks and the Seamen on board Mercantile Vessels in Scottish harbours or waters on the night of 3d April; but do not include the 914 persons on board Scottish Vessels in Foreign Ports, and at Sea, whose returns we have already received; nor yet the persons on board Scottish Vessels in English, Irish, or Colonial Ports, of whose numbers we are yet ignorant. The returns from the inaccessible island of St Kilda have not yet been received; but to complete the Tables, the population of that island has been entered as it stood in 1871.

TABLE II . exhibits the same facts for SCOTLAND, grouped in its EIGHT REGISTRATION DIVISIONS, and its thirty-three REGISTRATION COUNTIES. With the exception of the Insular Counties of Shetland, Orkney, and Bute, the populations of the Registration Counties differ more or less from those of the Civil Counties.

TABLE III . is prepared with the view of showing the Comparative Increase or Decrease in the Numbers of the Population and Houses in 1871 and 1881, in SCOTLAND and in its several CIVIL COUNTIES (the definition of a "house" has, however, been changed in the Scottish Census Act for 1881).

TABLE IV. shows the Numbers of the Population, distinguishing the Sexes, in each of the CIVIL COUNTIES of SCOTLAND, at the taking of each Census from 1801 to 1881.

TABLE V. is framed from Table IV., and shows the Increase or Decrease of the population in each of the CIVIL COUNTIES, and in all SCOTLAND, in the intervals between the taking of the several Censuses from 1801 to 1881.

TABLE VI. is based on the numbers given in Table V., and shows the Rates of Increase or Decrease in the respective Sexes, and in the whole Population of SCOTLAND, in each of its CIVIL COUNTIES, in decennial periods, from 1801 to 1881.

TABLE VII. gives some particulars relative to the PARLIAMENTARY BURGHS OF SCOTLAND, as to the Population, Number of Families, Houses, and Rooms with Windows.

TABLES VIII. and IX. give a Comparative View of the Population of Scotland when thrown into Five Groups according to Density of Population, viz., Principal Towns, Large Towns, Small Towns, Mainland-Rural, and Insular-Rural Districts, Table VIII. giving in each the Total Number of Persons, and the Numbers of each Sex, together with the Number of Houses, Families, and Rooms with Windows in 1881, while Table IX. shows the Increase of Males, Females, and Persons, and the Percentage of Increase between the Census periods 1871 and 1881.

TABLES X. and XI. show similar facts for the Eight Principal Towns.

TABLE XII. gives a statement of the Number of Persons on board Scottish Vessels in Foreign Ports, or at Sea; but does not include the Scottish Shipping in English, Irish, and Colonial Ports and Seas, on the 4th of April 1881.

We have the honour to be,

SIR,

  Your most obedient Servants,

STAIR AGNEW,
Registrar-General.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON, M.D.

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