THE CENSUS 1831
The 1831 census was conducted at a time when the country was as close to revolution as it came in the whole of the 19th century.
The Great Reform Bill exposed major divisions over political reform. It was designed to remodel the electoral system where small settlements sometimes had two members of parliament, in the pocket of local landowners, while new towns like Manchester had none. The Bill was intended to force the Tory landowners to relinquish some power in favour of the new industrialists.
‘Slavery was the source of much of the wealth of elite Tory families’
The census was taken three months after the Bill had been introduced on 1 March, starting a crisis that lasted more
