Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The aims of the project were as follows : to collect and process information from the data relating to the Welsh language in the 1891 Census Enumerators' Returns in 20 selected communities in Wales; to create computer-readable data files on the language ability of around 90,000 individuals, i.e. five per cent of the population; to undertake a quantitative analysis of the socio-economic structure of Welsh/English language ability on the basis of the above data; to develop a classification of occupations in order to explore links between economic activity and the process of language change; to write a volume on the basis of the above in order to deepen our socio-cultural understanding of a society in which nearly a million people spoke Welsh and over half a million were monoglot Welsh.

Main Topics:

The dataset contains 35 files, each of which consists of a 100 per cent sample of the enumeration district in twenty communities selected from the 178 sub-registration districts in Wales, i.e. 90,000 individuals or five per cent of the total population of wales in 1891. Two specific datafiles were created for each district. Variables in the first file identify : the individual person, enumeration district, schedule number, first name, surname, relation to head of household, marital status, gender, age, occupation, employment status, occupation code, country/county of birth, birthplace and language spoken. Variables in the second file identify : the enumeration district, schedule number, whether a Welsh-language schedule was used, number of persons in the household, number of rooms and address.

Purposive selection/case studies

Transcription of existing materials

transcribed from the Census Enumerators' Returns for 1891