CLAVERING CENSUS, 1841

                                                        
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Transcriber's note: this transcription of the Census is based on the originals which are hard to read in places, but easily available on fiche and are of course listed in order of location. It seems more useful to family historians to re-arrange them alphabetically, as below. The 1841 Census is generally regarded as less useful than the 1851, since it did not give place of birth (only county of birth), did not indicate kin relationships and the ages of adults are rounded down – although the ages of those under 15 are usually given more precisely.

Some of the place names have altered, for instance Brent Green is now Butts or Birds Green, Sticklands Green is Sticklings Green, Wicken Lane is Wicken Road, Skeins Lane is Pelham Road, Clatterbury Lane is Arkesden Road, Water Lane is the High Street, Druce Lane is The Druce, Hide Lane is Stortford Road and Ruters Farm is now Ruttels. Each bold entry below represents the head of a household, with wife, children and other residents following with their ages, the occupation in italics and the location in capitals. 'Aglab' = Agricultural labourer.

Perhaps the best use of this census is in conjunction with the Clavering Tithe Award and Map of similar date – using the two together you can reconstruct most of the village as it then was and see where people lived. This exercise can of course be done with most villages that had Tithe Awards and maps of that time since the map shows the houses very accurately and the award lists the names of the landowner, occupier, acreage, land use. In some cases the two sources do not tie up, however, perhaps because people moved or were out when the Census was taken. Frustratingly, there always seem to be some people who just don't appear on the Census – a rural suspicion perhaps of officialdom. As stated above, the 1851 Census is really a more reliable one and for that reason perhaps was chosen rather than the 1841 to be listed in alphabetical order by the Essex Society for Family History for the entire county, available on fiche. It is generally acknowledged that details like ages can often be wrong – people did not always know their exact date of birth or might not tell the truth. The Census was generally taken in the spring, so some people would be away undertaking seasonal labour elsewhere. Some might be in the workhouse, not recorded here.

Given all these caveats, the picture of Clavering which emerges from this Census is one of an extensive, poor and largely self-sufficient community with many more tradesmen than most villages – there were quite a few shoemakers, bricklayers, carpenters and farmers, with blacksmiths, wheelwrights, tailors, baker, butchers, publicans, millers, glazier, harness makers, plumber, thatchers, rat-catchers, shopkeeper, cooper and carrier. Clavering must have been something of a trading centre for other neighbouring villages. But most of the men and lads, around 200 altogether, worked on the farms, and this was the period commonly called 'the hungry forties' when distress was rife. The farm wages at this time in Clavering were said to be some of the lowest in the whole of Essex, and many families could only survive winter by spending periods in the workhouse.

The official Census summary report, published as a Parliamentary Paper, gives the total Clavering population in 1841 as 1,172 of whom 590 were males and 582 females. There were 245 inhabited houses, 8 uninhabited and one being built. A total of 335 occupations are given, 211 of them in Class IV, mostly labourers or servants. Almost half of the village population were aged under 20, so it was a much more youthful village than today, and the other big difference is that 93% were born in Essex and only 97 from out of the county – one would guess that most of the formers were Clavering natives. The Census, for all its faults, offers a snapshot of a very different world.

Jacqueline Cooper, Clavering Local History Recorder

If any errors or queries, please email Jacqueline Cooper