THE CENSUS 1871

Ideas about breeding were stimulated by presentations of Darwin’s theories

The major change from the previous census in 1861 was that the last column of the form now asked if a resident of the household was “1 Deaf-and-Dumb, 2 Blind, 3 Imbecile or Idiot, or 4 Lunatic”. An enumeration of infirmity in the census played to anxieties among the educated that the physical stock of the nation was in decline. Ideas about breeding were stimulated by popular presentations of the theories of Charles Darwin, whose book was published this year. Within its pages he applied the insights that he had gleaned from the animal world to humanity. Some