This dataset provides a range of demographic and socio-economic variables for Registration Sub-Districts (RSDs) in England and Wales, 1851-1911. The measures have mainly been derived from the computerised individual level census enumerators' books (and household schedules for 1911) for England and Wales enhanced under the I-CeM project. I-CeM does not currently include data for 1871, although the project has been able to access a version of the data for that year it does not contain information necessary to calculate many of the variables presented here. Users should therefore beware that 1871 does not contain data for many of the variables. Additional data, for some indicators, has been derived from the tables summarising numbers of births and deaths by year and areas, which were published by the Registrar General in his quarterly, annual and decennial reports of births, deaths and marriages. More information on the data, including overviews of the geographical patterns and changes over time, can be found on the Populations Past – Atlas of Victorian and Edwardian Population website, which provides an interactive mapping facility for these data. The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of major change in the dynamics of the British population. This was a time of transformation from a relatively 'high pressure' demographic regime characterised by medium to high birth and death rates towards a 'low pressure' regime of low birth and death rates, a transformation known as the 'demographic transition'. This transition was not uniform across England and Wales: certain places and social groups appear to have led the declines while others lagged behind. Exploring these geographical patterns can provide insights into the process of change and the influence of economic and geographical factors. This project aimed to utilise the individual-level data of the Integrated Census Microdata (I-CeM) project to calculate age-specific fertility rates both for a range of fine geographical units covering England and Wales and for occupational groups and then to investigate the relationships between these rates and other socioeconomic variables. This was to provide, for the first time, widespread information of the age patterns of fertility which render insight into ‘starting’, ‘spacing’ or ‘stopping’ fertility regulating behaviour. A time series of such measures across geographical and social space is also vital when trying to identify how new forms of behaviour spread through the population. This database contains a variety of measures of fertility, marriage and infant and child mortality, and also a range of socio-economic indicators (related to households, age structure, and social class) for the 2000+ Registration Sub Districts (RSDs) in both England and Wales, for each census year between 1851 and 1871. Most of these data can be mapped using our interactive website www.populationspast.org.

This data collection was derived from near complete count individual level census data, from which we have created demographic and socio-economic indicators at a Registration Sub-District level, using a variety of demographic and statistical techniques. For a few variables, birth and death summary data (at Sub-Registration District level) were also used.