Census, Mariners at sea

[trian]

Can anyone advise me if census returns were completed for merchant mariners who may have been at sea on census night? If there were records taken, where they only for ships in British ports or were they taken for those out of British waters?
Any help is appreciated. Many thanks
Trish

[celia]

Hi Trish
There is a bit of the census i don't understand in regard to ships "At Sea". All vessels tugs and anything else with a crew in a port on census night English or not went on the census. If a ship/vessel is At Sea as far as i know the crew were not able to be entered on the census.I have seen on the "Vessel's in port "on a census,where it gives the name of the vessel then says "At Sea" so i would imagine like the normal census where the enumerators had a list of houses to visit. The dockyard census enumerates would have a list of ships. Otherwise how would he know one of them was at sea. I think i have just explained to myself what i didn't understand
Can anyone elaborate on that

Celia

[trian]

Celia,
Thanks for your message.  I will keep searching.
Trish

[jmp]

Some of the Censuses do have "ships at sea" at the time of the Census.  Although I think the early ones werent covered.  Certainly I have one in 1861 where the occupants were in "the North Sea" at the time of the Census and a later one I think from memory the 81 where they were on the Dogger Bank. The Census forms had to be handed in to  the Port official on return of the ship and applied to vessels on " coastal or short foreign trips" e.g. fishermen.  Have a look at the part of the census dealing with the vessels and see what the notes say.
jackie

[stanmapstone]

For members of the Royal Navy in 1841 only a head count was probably attempted. For the Merchant Navy no attempt appears to have been made to make a complete enumeration of the crew and passengers of merchant ships. Instead the GRO asked the General Register and Record Office of Seamen to provide the number of seamen's names on it's register on 6th June 1841, after deducting those reported dead. Only a global figure for the total number of merchant seamen was given in the 1841 Census Report.
"Making Sense of the Census" published by the National Archives.

Remember the censuses were taken purely for statistical purposes and not for future family historians.
Stan

[stanmapstone]

The instructions for the 1861 Census meant that only British Ships in the coasting or home trade which arrived in port within a certain period, or British ships in the foreign trade which were in port on census night, should have been issued with ships' schedules. British foreign-going ships in foreign waters before 8 April should not have been given schedules. Some ships which were in the Baltic and Mediterranean on census night and appear in the schedules were apparently foreign-going vessels which were mistakenly given schedules by the custom officers.
Stan

[stanmapstone]

"In 1851 the process was very complex. The intention was to restrict a nominal enumeration to the crew and passengers of British vessels engaged in the home trade, either in port on census night or arriving within a month. It is not clear if British vessels engaged in foreign trade were so enumerated, although the wording of the schedules would indicate not. The apparent destruction of most of the ships' schedules for this census makes it difficult to settle the question. For all other vessels only a headcount was officially attempted". From 'Making Sense of The Census Revisited' by Edward Higgs, who devotes three pages to the census enumeration of the merchant marine.
Stan

[purplemoon]

I've just been looking at a census return, think it was 1861, that listed all the ships and their crew even if they were stationed abroad. Just from the first few I looked at had one in Jamaica and another in Shanghai, China.

I'll see if I can find it again for you

[purplemoon]

I hope it's ok to post an Ancestry url here 

http://content.ancestry.co.uk/Browse/list.aspx?dbid=8767&path=Misc+Ships+at+Sea+or+Abroad.Vessels