1921 Census

[my father being highlighted]

Various people have been telling me about the 1921 Census, recently made available online.

It seems that the Census Office, now I think part of the Office for National Statistics, have outsourced access to the 1921 Census to the National Archives, who, in turn, have outsourced it to an outfit called Findmypast. Opening gambit is that it is all free, but very soon they are asking me to stump up a modest £2.50.

For which I learn that my father's father had already died by 1921, leaving his wife, who had borne him ten or more children, a widow - but one who must have been quite tough as she lived on into the early 1950's. There may even be photographs of me sitting on her knee. I had already known that he was a farmer and fruit grower, also that what had been one of his orchards was now a desirable housing estate in easy commuting reach of Cambridge, for which see reference 3. In my father's young day, the commute in question being somewhere between a farm track and a highway - along which the first born sister used, on occasion, to drive cart loads of fruit to market.

Also that the three elder daughters had all left home by 1921 - despite being of the First World War generation, that is to say girls for whom boys were in short supply.

Mostly fields when I was a child. The Thorpe, seemingly dating from Saxon times, running roughly north south, middle left, being the road in question. 

PS 1: I should declare an interest in that my first white-collar job was with what was then called OPCS, the organisation which conduced population censuses in the UK in the 1970's. My first boss's boss got his promotion from outstanding service on the 1971 Census. My first boss was not too pleased about this, but there, there is nothing new.

PS 2: a correspondent points out first that this Census has been copied by hand into the computer, with, at least on previous occasions, the first language of copiers not always being English. Given the quality of the source material, it is likely that there are plenty of copying errors - not that I noticed any. And second, that the Findmypast price structure is not well suited to the serious amateur genealogist.

References

Reference 1: https://www.ons.gov.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/memory-lane.html.