Women, Occupations and Work in the Victorian Censuses Revisited

There has long been a tendency amongst historians to view the Victorian censuses of England and Wales as a problematic source for studying the work of women. This article examines some of the key works underpinning this claim and shows their shortcomings, especially in relation to their extrapolation from isolated local studies to the national picture. Drawing upon comparisons between local census returns in East Anglia and London, and other nominal records, the authors show a high degree of agreement between the occupations of women found in the various sources. The range of occupations indicated in the census, and changes therein over time, fit what historians know of the changing economies of the localities studied. The provisional conclusion is that the nineteenth-century census returns are a reliable source for the study of women’s work in the period, and this opens up new fields of study.