1921 Census: Revealed

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

For the first time, the 1921 Census of England & Wales is now publicly available, only online at the family history website, Findmypast. More detailed than any previous British census taken up to that point, it provides us with a remarkable, once-in-a-generation snapshot of a country that had been transformed after the First World War. In this episode, we are joined by guests Audrey Collins, from The National Archives, and Myko Clelland, from Findmypast. They explain what the records show about how families, communities and workplaces were reshaped by the war, as well as share stories buried deep within the Census that reveal so much about how our ancestors lived a hundred years ago.

Are you interested in exploring your own family history? After years spent digitising and transcribing this unique record of your recent history, the 1921 Census is now available exclusively online with Findmypast. Start exploring now at findmypast.co.uk

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Dance No S History. It's very, very exciting because 100 years have now passed since the 1921 census.
0:07.3	It is private for 100 years so people won't get embarrassed about any domestic arrangements they want to keep a little bit quiet about.
0:14.4	But now 100 years passed, it's all water under the bridge. There's no shame in it anymore.
0:18.8	There's no shame in telling people who your pets were. What you were doing on that particular day in 1921.
0:25.0	The census is out, that means we can rush to it and we can work out what was living in our house. What our families were doing.
0:32.4	What British society looked like, how many kids people were having and what was the impact of the First World War on people's families.
0:39.3	It is always an exciting event. The once every decade release of the census.
0:45.6	Here talking to me about it right on the podcast is Audrey Collins from National Archives.
0:50.9	And Miko Kledon has done the podcast before. I've just mentioned from Find My Past. Find My Past is the place to go to if you want to get hold of these census records.
1:00.8	If you're not a subscriber, please get over there and subscribe to find my past where you can look at the census and all sorts of other documents.
1:07.4	Actually millions and billions, in fact, billions of other records.
1:11.6	So get ready as Miko and Audrey talk us through 38 million lives. What they've learnt is about 38 million lives that contained in this census.
1:18.2	It's the most extensive census ever available online after years of digitising, years of transcribing.
1:24.8	Can you imagine all the hard work that's going to this? Thank you very much. Find My Past for doing all that.
1:29.3	You're going to hear about what Britain was like in 1921 and you're also going to hear about some very interesting pets. Here it is, enjoy.
1:42.4	Audrey Miko, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. It's wonderful.
1:45.6	That's lovely to be here. Thank you.
1:47.2	Good to see you both. So it's here, the big 21, the big 1921 census.
1:53.2	It's always an exciting moment, Audrey, but is there anything about this one that is presumably it's the biggest census?
1:59.4	Yes, the British population kept growing, right? It's the biggest one to be released yet.
2:02.6	Well, yes, there is always that. They just get bigger and bigger.
2:05.7	A new census release is always exciting and I can remember when the 1891 was released and all the other since then.
	...

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