The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick-Maker; The story of Britain through its census, since 1801

by Roger Hutchinson

At the beginning of each decade for 200 years the national census has presented a self-portrait of the British Isles.
The census has surveyed Britain from the Napoleonic wars to the age of the internet, through the agricultural and industrial revolutions, possession of the biggest empire on earth and the devastation of the 20th century's two world wars.
In The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker, Roger Hutchinson looks at every census between the first in 1801 and the latest in 2011. He uses this much-loved resource of family historians to paint a vivid picture of a society experiencing unprecedented changes.
Hutchinson explores the controversial creation of the British census. He follows its development from a head-count of the population conducted by clerks with quill pens, to a computerised survey which is designed to discover 'the address, place of birth, religion, marital status, ability to speak English and self-perceived national identity of every twenty-seven-year-old Welsh-speaking Sikh metalworker living in Swansea'.
All human life is here, from prime ministers to peasants and paupers, from Irish rebels to English patriots, from the last native speakers of Cornish to the first professional footballers, from communities of prostitutes to individuals called 'abecedarians' who made a living from teaching the alphabet.
The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker is as original and unique as those people and their islands on the cutting edge of Europe.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, British Literature, 19th Century, Historical

352 pages, Hardcover

Published February 2, 2017

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

A pretty interesting read going through the history of the British census and what it tells us about population trends and work. Very interesting on rural depopulation and with plenty of nice nuggets--stories of real people used to illustrate points, a fun section on names dying out.

It's hard to know what's missing bc the data isn't there and what's authorial choice but I found the treatment of immigrants rather thin and oddly focused. There's a big chapter on Jewish immigration and how antisemitic language of "we're being invaded" wasn't even dented by the actual facts as revealed in the census, because different times same shit. Virtually nothing on Asian immigration, though, despite a lot on Empire and emigration.

Overall quite interesting but my copy isn't as dog eared to mark the good bits as I might have hoped.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Butcher, Baker and Candlestick Maker receives a somewhat lukewarm response. It promised much and was received with great promise but benefited from having an extended amount of time to work one's way through it.
The book promised to look at the way in which the census reflected the changing shape and composition of British society. It probably achieves this. Larger themes of the rural-urban migration, industrialisation and its impacts on the population are well captured and documented. So the promise was kept in this regard. Additionally, aspects looking at the logistics of census-taking and the campaign to make this an integral part of bureaucratic practice were a useful context for – and in fact arguably some of the more memorable and valuable parts of the book.
It seemed tightly written for the first few chapters (largely around Rickman and some of the other personages involved in census affairs) but then seemed to lose track of structure over the run of the book and was all over the map as it went on.
It is possibly more interesting for the numerically inclined and yet sometimes, confounding this, the author veers off in later stages on extended anecdotal narratives that verge on distraction.
There is a useful parallel to be drawn with Bill Bryson’s At Home in terms of attempting to find a structure for such narrative, but despite the author’s clear capabilities, he is not quite as crafty a storyteller as Bryson. Unfortunately, it never rose to being ‘writerly’ in this regard.
Although it maintains some level of engagement with the reader, an increasing tendency towards a formulaic and repetitive treatment of census periods as it went on challenged the reader’s patience. Additionally, there is a sense that it has greater resonance when one could connect to the area or peoples being examined (which in itself is no surprise) but this also suggested a degree of parochial approach to the material being presented.
There were many nuggets in it though and the enumeration and distribution of Jedi Knights in British society struck a particular chord.
Good but it could have been far better.

[Rob Markley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book firmly belongs to the genre of entertainment by non fiction. In other words there is no serious attempt to either tell the story of the census, nor of what it informs us - therefore it is somewhat curious/unnecessary that the book includes a fairly comprehensive index. Although there is some background to the first 1801 census and it's chief administrator, rather there are a series of interesting anecdotes and snapshots reflecting changes of society.

Some of these stories are indeed interesting, although surely the sources these are drawn from are quite outside the census and thus making the title a mere excuse for a potted social history. Nevertheless it was a worthwhile topic for a book. However I did not rate this highly at all for a number of reasons. Hutchinson is apparently a journalist for the radical press and it shows. Firstly there is the poor writing all too typical of journalists (who in employment may have the excuse of time pressure but not here) to chaotically introduce new names or topics without informing the reader they are doing so. There are many long drawn quotes, but without either speech marks or footnotes to identify them, and even when slightly indented (seemingly randomly) that is easily lost across page turns.

The book attempts both a rough chronological structure, at the same time as dealing with matters thematically, however this is again disorganised. Many of the chapter headings don't reflect anything of their content. One of the big themes that does come up time and again is emigration; and I can't but wonder how a census managed to enumerate those who were absent!? Surely some explanation was in order, but I suspect most likely this information is drawn from entirely different sources.

Then the most jarring issue is the increasingly obvious socialist bias of Hutchinson with all those cherished leftist prejudices. Of course prostitutes are good, he all but ignores the immense contribution of non conformists to culture and the industrial revolution, he readily bandies about labels of racism, he lampoons conservative politicians and lauds socialists, he takes sides when unions struggle with employers, supports those wanting to break up of the United Kingdom and generally takes an anti British position whenever possible. People drawn to read this sort of book surely want to hear of the triumphs of Britain through two centuries of challenge and change as reflected in the census results, not a critique of its place in the world!

Notwithstanding, there is an interesting, insightful conclusion in the wrap up pages (p324-5). Reflecting that in post-industrial Britain 81% of work fell into the service category, Hutchinson remarks that is actually not too dissimilar to the 'nation of shopkeepers' and jobbers of pre-industrial Britain. Perhaps these centuries have been an aberration and we are actually returning to the norm?

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

History with a quirky angle. I really enjoyed this book, and if you're over ten/have been living in the UK for over ten years, you yourself will be a part of this particular piece of history. I hadn't given the census an awful lot of thought, beyond that thing about lots of people putting 'jedi' down as their religion the previous census to try and make it an official religion in the UK (didn't work). But you can indeed track history through the census responses, and even the questions considered relevant at the decade it was taken. I hadn't realised either that it had started so far back, in 1801 and has been going ever since, only skipping once in 1941 as there were other pressing things going on at the time. But events such as the wars, and aftereffects of depopulation, depression, emmigration, immigration, the suffragettes - love the fact that some refused to open their doors to the enumerators, some wrote occupation as 'slave' etc - and the changing landscape of where people were living, what they were doing can be seen in these documents. Or the Yorkshire Man who wrote down the residents of his household as himself, a canary, two cats and mice - although he had no idea how many =) It's just picking out the personal stories that you can find in the census and filling in the details.

[Adam Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that in 1851, there were 1152 knife makers in Great Britain, but only 433 fork makers? No, you probably didn't, but this is one of the many things you can learn if you read this compelling history of the British census and its data. The more interesting part of this book concerns the history and logistics of census-taking. Numerous random things struck me, such as how people weren't quite sure when Queen Victoria was born (let alone anyone else). The other aspect of this book was the insights given by the census on social trends, such as urbanisation, immigration and provincial language decline. Hutchinson is not so engaging on these broader questions, but still offers interesting perspectives, not least showing the irony of British people getting agitated about immigration while revelling in their imperial ascendancy. Overall, great read.

[Susan Steed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel a bit bad giving this book such a low rating. There were some really interesting nuggets of information in this book, but it was written for me in a pretty boring way.

The part that I found really interesting was about immigration, and it's not a part of our history that Britain can be proud of. The first act through parliament on immigration was literally called 'The Alien Act'. Hutchinson sums it up pretty well;

"The irony early in the 20th C was to be found chiefly in the fact that a noisy section of British society could get hot and bothered about the presence in the country of a few hundred thousand foreigners, while simultaneously delighting in their jurisdiction over countless millions of other foreigners elsewhere in the world."

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the topic of the Census is fascinating - the way it was put across was slow and interspersed by nuggets of family history....that made it a bit hard to follow and harder to decide what this book wanted to be...

That said its a peculiar subject and no matter what way somebody tries to write about it will no doubt be off-putting to one reader or another - a good attempt but not for me .... even if it did pick up towards the end (despite the authors London centric Guardian Newspaper approach to immigration in the last chapter).

[amal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lost interest somewhat after the early chapters on the creation of the census and its evolution (probably the most interesting part). While I appreciated his thoroughness in detailing the changes in population over time, the lists and numbers were not always interesting. Picked it up again and found that what really saves this book are the random stories of real people against the backdrop of a changing landscape (from industrial revolution, urbanization, famine, emigration, war, immigration, etc.). Some of the best parts are toward the end, on British imperialism and xenophobia.

[Savina King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic understanding of british history and changing attitudes. Unfortunatley our attitudes to foriegners has not changed much. Plus sa change, plus sa meme chose!. As my french loving daughter might say. Or not, Lol.

[Linda Humberstone · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book and some of the statistics that different census' reveal are at times is surprising..i.e., the amount of people that wanted 'Jedi' to be their religion. However, for me, it is not organised in a manner that makes the reading of it enjoyable.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book that kept me going back to look at my ancestor's census returns on Find My Past.
There was a romantically written chapter on the author's own ancestors in the middle that jarred a bit and would have been better in an appendix, but otherwise I found it educational and entertaining.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting delve into the British census. Left me wanting a lot more interesting facts from the census themselves though. Reinspired to do some more family tree research.

[Susan Grimshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book, very informative and extremely readable, the best book I have read so far this year.

[Sue Merrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting read but very dry in places. I did learn quite a lot about the movement of the British population throughout the 19th & 20th century and why they moved.

[Lesley Lambourne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a lengthy read, it provides a solid background for family history research, by setting out clearly population growth and movements

[Sue Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fascinating read about the beginning in 1801 of the British Census and the changes from then until present day.