top of page
Mark D Richardson

No Census, no way of knowing?

Updated: Feb 28, 2019

1n 1942 the Office and Works store in Hayes, Middlesex that contained all information of people living in England and Wales was destroyed in a fire.


I thought I would use part of my Blog to show where some of the inspiration for the Eagle Legacy came from. Some thing's just fall in your lap if you spend time researching...and this gave me the glue i needed to stick the main plot lines together.

“So in a sense it would be possible to use false documents to enter the country undetected. Quite a problem in a war...and opportunity for the enemy”

Blamed on a discarded cigarette...apparently

The 1931 Census only covered Great Britain, that is England, Scotland and Wales. A census in Northern Ireland had been taken in April 1926 so no census was taken there in 1931.

The preliminary report on the census was published in July 1931 and reported the population of England and Wales as 39.9 million, an increase of just over 2 million since 1921.

(Not) Accessing the 1931 Census

In theory the 1931 census for England & Wales would have been available for public access in 2032 or perhaps earlier if rules were to be changed. However that is not to be.

On the night of Saturday 19 December 1942, there was a fire at a store in Hayes, Middlesex. The store, the responsibility of the Office of Works, contained a large amount of furniture but in addition it contained the census records for England & Wales for 1931, that is the whole of the schedules, enumeration books and plans. They were all completely destroyed.

The full story can be found here http://www.1911census.org.uk/1931.htm



14 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page