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Sum of Us: A History of the UK in Data
What has data ever done for us?
Georgina Sturge, House of Commons Library statistician and author of the critically acclaimed Bad Data, explores the rich history of the times the UK has counted itself—from the revolutionary first census of 1801 to modern worries over technological surveillance.
Condensing a whole society into numbers brought hidden problems to mapping cholera deaths in Soho led researchers to a single deadly water pump; Florence Nightingale stunned the Victorian establishment with her diagrams showing disease was the soldier's hidden enemy; and the discovery that industries like firework-making were almost entirely staffed by women helped improve workers' rights.
The census also reveals the people left out of the nation's story. Records reveal the remarkable presence of escaped American slaves living in nineteenth century Leeds, and that by 1901 there were 600 professional Italian cooks in the UK. More recent data has acknowledged religion, ethnicity, and LGBT identity for the first time. Sturge also tracks those who have resisted the state's attempts at tabulation—people burning survey forms, stripping naked in protest and, in the case of 500 Suffragettes, avoiding the 1911 census by skating all night round Aldwych roller rink.
Full of fascinating social detail, Sum of Us draws out the human stories captured in the vast tangle of data the UK has collected over two centuries. It provides a vital snapshot not of who we imagine ourselves to be—but who we really are.
Georgina Sturge, House of Commons Library statistician and author of the critically acclaimed Bad Data, explores the rich history of the times the UK has counted itself—from the revolutionary first census of 1801 to modern worries over technological surveillance.
Condensing a whole society into numbers brought hidden problems to mapping cholera deaths in Soho led researchers to a single deadly water pump; Florence Nightingale stunned the Victorian establishment with her diagrams showing disease was the soldier's hidden enemy; and the discovery that industries like firework-making were almost entirely staffed by women helped improve workers' rights.
The census also reveals the people left out of the nation's story. Records reveal the remarkable presence of escaped American slaves living in nineteenth century Leeds, and that by 1901 there were 600 professional Italian cooks in the UK. More recent data has acknowledged religion, ethnicity, and LGBT identity for the first time. Sturge also tracks those who have resisted the state's attempts at tabulation—people burning survey forms, stripping naked in protest and, in the case of 500 Suffragettes, avoiding the 1911 census by skating all night round Aldwych roller rink.
Full of fascinating social detail, Sum of Us draws out the human stories captured in the vast tangle of data the UK has collected over two centuries. It provides a vital snapshot not of who we imagine ourselves to be—but who we really are.
- GenresHistory
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Published April 10, 2025
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July 2, 2025(not the kindle version)
Subtitle: A History of the UK in Data
This is a fascinating book, I’m glad I picked it up from the library, unprompted and unplanned. In hindsight the subject matter seems a bit nerdy, but don’t be put off by that! Yes the underlying premise is about data collected about us, starting with the 1801 census, up to modern trends, which I will come to. On the way Sturge provides a social history of these islands and the wider empire, covering the evolution of the welfare system, improvements to housing and health, emancipation, the changing nature of families, the workplace, and social mobility, through world wars, post-colonial immigration, integration, inclusion & identity (including the definition and evolution of many protected characteristics). Through each of these huge movements (and many more) data has been key to inform public policies - so-called ‘Political Arithmetic’ - and in doing so helped us to understand who we are.
More recently, there has been a huge increase in the amount of data collected, both explicitly as ‘administrative data’, and secretly (or not so secretly) through the internet, social media, and security surveillance. The UK has consistently avoided the creation and maintenance of a National Register (except during WWII), but we may be entering a period where the 10-yearly audit - an important consensual contract between state and its citizens - becomes irrelevant, replaced by an amorphous and constant proxy database of us. This reminds me of the 2 clever plays on words; early on the notion that if you are included in a ‘count’ (census/survey), then you ‘count’, an important contention made by suffragettes, and; the ‘sum of us’ (viz ‘some’) is about all of us as a society, not a back-door totalitarian motivation to control the access and privileges of individuals.
Subtitle: A History of the UK in Data
This is a fascinating book, I’m glad I picked it up from the library, unprompted and unplanned. In hindsight the subject matter seems a bit nerdy, but don’t be put off by that! Yes the underlying premise is about data collected about us, starting with the 1801 census, up to modern trends, which I will come to. On the way Sturge provides a social history of these islands and the wider empire, covering the evolution of the welfare system, improvements to housing and health, emancipation, the changing nature of families, the workplace, and social mobility, through world wars, post-colonial immigration, integration, inclusion & identity (including the definition and evolution of many protected characteristics). Through each of these huge movements (and many more) data has been key to inform public policies - so-called ‘Political Arithmetic’ - and in doing so helped us to understand who we are.
More recently, there has been a huge increase in the amount of data collected, both explicitly as ‘administrative data’, and secretly (or not so secretly) through the internet, social media, and security surveillance. The UK has consistently avoided the creation and maintenance of a National Register (except during WWII), but we may be entering a period where the 10-yearly audit - an important consensual contract between state and its citizens - becomes irrelevant, replaced by an amorphous and constant proxy database of us. This reminds me of the 2 clever plays on words; early on the notion that if you are included in a ‘count’ (census/survey), then you ‘count’, an important contention made by suffragettes, and; the ‘sum of us’ (viz ‘some’) is about all of us as a society, not a back-door totalitarian motivation to control the access and privileges of individuals.
Displaying 1 of 1 review