Census and the homeless

[Andrew Tarr]

Following a sideline on my wife's tree led me to the question implied in the title.  One of her great-aunts married in 1893 aged 32, and that marriage must have been bigamous as she was married as a Smith, although born a McKay.  Her first marriage was on Tyneside just after the 1881 census, and 10 years later she was living with her parents again.  Meanwhile her husband was in Cardiff with two of his sisters.  For twenty years he claimed a variety of trades and appeared regularly before the magistrates for being drunk and disorderly, while fathering 5 children with another Elizabeth, who he seems not to have married.  By 1911 his family is in dire straits; the 'wife' died in 1914 of a cerebral haemorrhage, and he is missing from the 1921 census.

However he was still in Cardiff, finally meeting his end in 1923 after being hit by a taxi while walking along the road, drunk.  Being known to the police, he was identified and recorded as of no fixed abode; otherwise he might have been an unknown death.  So I started wondering how the census records people 'sleeping rough' - where are the forms delivered ? 

[Geoff-E]

Just a casual search, Yorkshire 1911, keyword "slept" found 6 people-
One was "unknown name", "tramp slept in yard"
A family of three (named) "slept in outhouse"
A (named) couple "Casuals, on the road", "slept in barn"

In 1921, nine such people were found in Yorks (all named).

They may be out there, but not necessarily named. 

[Jackiemh]

I have several ancestors who have not appeared in a couple of census records and have always thought that if you didn't want to be recorded in them, you would find a way not to be. If you were homeless, you may not have been aware that they were happening.
There may have been various reasons for not wanting to be recorded.
Jackie

[RJ_Paton]

The responsibility to account for the homeless in their area fell  to the local police

Enumeration of the Homeless

    Methodology: Unlike the general population who filled out household forms, the enumeration of the homeless was a policing issue at the time due to the Vagrancy Act of 1824, which criminalized homelessness. Police officers patrolled their districts on the night of June 19, 1921, and recorded the details of those sleeping rough, including in police station cells, on census forms.

[Elwyn Soutter]

In April 2011 I was working in NW Scotland. I met 3 people who I know were not included in that year’s census. 2 were living in a Campervan and the third was living on a nearby small island which the authorities perhaps assumed was uninhabited, but certainly didn’t send any forms to.  So even in modern times there will be many missing from the census. That’s before we consider the behaviour of folk who might want to be excluded from it for whatever reason, whose efforts to be overlooked might have been more determined.

Back in the 1800s it would have been even easier to be overlooked, excluded, or simply to give completely false details.

[coombs]

I have an ancestor's cousin in rural Oxfordshire in 1851 who was enumerated in a barn, and was described as a "tramp".

I have one ancestor missing from the 1881 census but he was never homeless as far as I know, he was a rural Essex ag lab, and just seems absent in 1881. Maybe he was working away and was not enumerated, or slept in a field on census night. 

[Rena]

I once found entries for a group of entertainers sleeping at the roadside on the way to the holiday resort of Blackpool on the west cost of England.

When she was a penniless student my late cousin volunteered to record nmes for the census.  She found people sleeping in seemingly empty houses and in tents on rough ground.