Work in Progress

The 1921 England Census

The British Government took the 1921 Census on June 19 1921. The records were released in January 2022. They are probably the most important census records ever unlocked and will be the last for 30 years because the 1931 records were lost in a fire during WWII and there was no census taken during that war. We will have to wait until 2051 or 52 before the next census records are released.

The census should have been taken on April 24 1921 but was delayed by nearly two months in the wake of the 'Black Friday' strike by railwaymen, coal miners and transport workers. This is the one and only time that the census date was changed.

There were some changes to the information required compared to that in the 1911 census :

• the question about the years of marriage and how many children was dropped [but see below];
• age was to be completed in years and months, not just years; [expressed below as years.months]
• 'divorced' was introduced as an option in the marriage column and that same column was used for children under 15 to record whether the parents were alive or dead;
• the name of an employer became required;
• men had to complete a table of all children under 16 by number and age whether on the census return or not;
• the 'infirmity' question was dropped;

In the table below, the PRO Reference is a link to an image of the relevant [RG14] schedule of the census. A new tab will open when you click on the link, just close it to return to this page.