UK Census - 1841

The census of 1841 was taken on the night of Monday, 7th June. Censuses had been taken every decade since 1801 but this was the first to record an individual's personal details, albeit in somewhat basic form.

Entries record a person's name, address, sex, age (for those over 15 years of age this was rounded down to the nearest 5 years), profession or trade and whether they were born in the county of abode.

548 Rowdens (including Rowdons) are found in the census returns for 1841. They are found living in 128 different parishes in 24 different counties. However this figure is not representative of the total number. The enumerators districts of Whitstable and Seasalter in Kent are missing from the archived records. As through the 19th century, an ever increasing number of Rowdens are found in these two parishes, the final number will be higher. Having looked through my records for Sept 51, I estimate that another 36 Rowdens were alive in these parishes in June 1841 making a total of 584 in 130 parishes.

There are some Rowdens who should appear and as yet are undiscovered in the returns. Potentially, there may be a few unknown Rowdens not yet discovered. Together I estimate these two unknowns to be about 39, or 6% of the total. Thus I calculate the number of Rowdens in England, Wales and the Channel Islands in 1841 to be very near 623.

The known numbers in each county are shown in this table.

View a map of the distribution of the surname in 1841 by Registration District.

Events during the previous decade (1830s) include:

• Discovery of electromagnetism by Michael Faraday
• Beginning of railroad construction in USA
• Charles Darwin makes his first expeditionary journey