Helen McCarthy on a history of the British census,

London Review of Books

‘The last snuffer-maker in England (67-year-old William Garner of Birmingham, recorded in 1851), Charlotte Brontë’s census return for the same year (occupation: “none”), the family of miners in Glamorgan who as late as 1891 spoke no language other than Welsh’ – Helen McCarthy on a history of the British census, from the new issue. Photograph: Alexandra Tzirkoti.

LRB · Helen McCarthy · The Statistical Gaze

About 15 years ago, when I was renting my first flat in London, a man from the Office for National Statistics paid me a call.

LRB.CO.UK