GB Historical DB

Birthplace statistics for residents of England and Wales in 1951

Table ID:
MIG_1951_EW     (1251595)
Contents:
Birthplace statistics for residents of England and Wales in 1951
Approx. number of rows:
18,924
Table type:
Raw Data
Documentation Author:
Paula Aucott
Geography:
Reporting units are identified by:
   Administrative County
   Local Government District
   Local Government District Type
Chronology:
The data are for the single year 1951.

Sources:

  1. The data are taken from table 19, 'Birthplaces and Nationalities of all population, Administrative County and County Borough', in the County Reports of the 1951 Census. Table 20, which has not been transcribed, covers 'Birthplaces in England and Wales Residents born outside the United Kingdom, Islands of the British Seas and the Irish Republic', for 'Administrative County and Urban Areas with total numbers exceeding 5,000.' This provides much more information on the specific foreign countries people were born in.
  2. These data were computerised by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis in summer 2000. They were corrected, slightly extended and re-documented by Humphrey Southall in July and August 2002.
  3. This table has been transcribed selectively, although the full table can be reconstructed from the information contained in the electronic version. Specifically, to avoid double counting summary columns in the original table were not computerised.
  4. The table does not include footnotes or endnotes.

Notes:

  1. The original table cross-tabulates the district of current residence, shown by two separate columns for males and females, with places of birth shown in the rows. The information has been re-organised here so that both current residences and birthplaces are held in columns. The original tables also contain overall totals for each county, which give total persons as well as males and females. These are not included in this transcription but can be reconstructed by grouping the data by county NB the 'row_id' column will often help in such groupings.
  2. Data were provided only for districts of current residence which had populations over 50,000 so for some counties, especially in Wales, the only data are for the county as a whole (lg_type='TOT') and for all remaining counties except London there is data for the 'County Remainder' (lg_type='COR') which provides aggregates covering all non-CB urban districts with less then 50,000 populations, plus Rural Districts. Note that our labelling differs slightly from the original usage: in several counties, the only district separately tabulated was a County Borough which was not technically part of the county, only associated with it, so what we have labelled a county remainder is in fact the county total; in such cases, the value of 'lgd_name' will show how the unit was described in the original.
  3. We have divided the information on place of birth into two halves, 'birth_area' and birth_detail'. Within the British Isles, the value of 'birth_area' indicates either the general part of the isles or the region of England. The following general parts appear:
    • England (row IDs 7-51)
    • Wales (52-65)
    • Scotland (1)
    • Northern Ireland (2)
    • Irish Republic (3)
    • Ireland (part not stated) (4)
    • Isle of Man (5)
    • Channel Islands (6)
    Individual counties of birth are not identified for Scotland or Ireland.
  4. The following regions of England and Wales appear as values of 'birth_area':
    • Northern (row IDs 7-11)
    • East and West Ridings (12)
    • North Western (13-15; NB includes 'Derbyshire (pt.)')
    • North Midland Counties (16-21)
    • Midland (22-26)
    • Eastern Counties (27-33; NB includes 'Essex (pt.)' and 'Hertfordshire (pt.)')
    • London and South Eastern (34-40; NB includes 'Essex (pt.)' and 'Hertfordshire (pt.)')
    • Southern (41-45)
    • South Western (46-50)
    • Wales (52-65)
    The original report states that 'The counties of birth given below are geographical counties, including associated County Boroughs, and divide only where a Standard Region boundary cuts across a county.' Within the above regions, some counties are always grouped together in the names included in 'birth_detail':
    • Within 'East and West Ridings' the county is simply listed as 'Yorkshire (Pt.)'.
    • 'Northamptonshire (Including Soke of Peterborough)'
    • 'Cambridgeshire (Including Isle of Ely)'
    • 'Hampshire (Including Isle of Wight)'
    The parts of Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Sussex are not distinguished, but Rutland is always included. Additional rows give 'County [of birth] not stated' for each of England (row ID 51) and Wales (65).
  5. Where people were born outside the British Isles, the values of 'birth_area' indicate whether this was in:
    • 'Commonwealth Countries' (row IDs 66-67; at this date, these presumably mainly cover the countries of white settlement plus India and Pakistan)
    • 'Colonies, Protectorates, etc.' (68-69)
    • 'Foreign Countries, At Sea and Birthplace Not Stated' (70-71)
    In each case, the value of 'birth_detail' then indicates whether they were 'Residents In England and Wales' or 'Visitors'. In the case of 'Residents' who were born in 'Foreign countries ...' (row ID 70), the table further sub-divides them into:
    • 'British by Birth or Descent' (row ID 72)
    • 'British by Naturalisation, Registration or Marriage' (73)
    • 'Stateless' (74)
    • 'Aliens' (75)
    • 'Not Stated Nationality' (76)
  6. This table was renamed from mig_1951 when transferred from the Oracle server. The column in the Oracle table called "lg_unit" actually relates to the Local Government District name so it was amended to be "lg_dist" to avoid confusion and make this table correspond with the same column name in other tables.
  7. There are various additional checking files for this year located in a sub-directory within mig_1951_ew. They have not been edited as it is unclear whether they are still neccesary.
  8. The birthplace fields contain fairly detailed information on places of birth for those born within England. For now they have been standardised using an additional column - birthplace type. Places are currently categorised as the following:
    • "SAME" same place (i.e. county) given for birthplace and location
    • "NATION" another place within England or Wales
    • "UK" another place within the rest of the UK plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
    • "ABROAD" is anywhere beyond that including those born at sea
    • "UNKNOWN" is used for those where birthplace was unknown or not stated.
  9. Where the birthplace fields relate to county remainders no matching has been done.

Checking:

  1. The original Belfast-written documentation said: 'The printed table contains a total for the number of people enumerated in each county and selected local government district. These figures were compared to the summed birthplace data for each unit.'
  2. The data have been cross-checked against the age structure data from the 1951 census. For each district of residence, the total numbers of males and females was calculated over all values of 'birth_area' and 'birth_detail' excluding 'Nationalities of Residents born in Foreign Countries ...' (row ID values 72-6), which are sub-divisions of 'Foreign Countries, at Sea and Birthplace Not Stated' (Row ID 70). These totals were then compared with the total numbers of males and of females listed in the age structure data. At the time of writing, a significant number of errors remain.
  3. A separate check was made that a computed total for the different 'Nationalities of Residents born in Foreign Countries ...' (row ID values 72-6) equalled the stated total for 'Foreign Countries, at Sea and Birthplace Not Stated' (Row ID 70).
  4. The locations refer only to Administrative Counties and Local Government Districts. These have been matched to the AUO except for the county remainders identified by lg_type "COR". The birthplace columns have not been matched to the AUO.

Indices:

IndexTypeColumn(s) indexed
mig_1951_ew_pkey Primary key rec_num
mig_1951_ew_idx1 Unique adm_cnty, lg_dist, lg_type, birth_area, birth_detail
mig_1951_ew_idx2 Unique birth_area, birth_detail, adm_cnty, lg_dist, lg_type

Constraints:

The table has the following associated constraints:

ConstraintTypeDetails
mig_1951_ew_pkey Primary Key See details above for primary key index


Columns within table:

ColumnTypeContents
adm_cnty Text string (max.len.=30). Administrative County the data were reported for, i.e. the county of residence at the enumeration.
lgd_name Text string (max.len.=46). Name of the Local Government District of current residence as originally published, i.e. in lower case, etc. In some cases this will be the name of a county, indicating a county total, or the name of a county suffixed by 'County Remainder', indicating the data are totals for a county with the stated local government district subtracted.
lg_dist Text string (max.len.=46). Name of the Local government District of current residence in standardised form, i.e. upper case, etc., and with '(County Remainder)' removed.
lg_type Text string (max.len.=12). Local government district type. Rural Districts ('RD') never appear, and as well as the usual codes for urban units the table includes: 'COR' = 'County Remainder' and 'TOT' = 'County Total' (i.e. no data for districts). As noted above, 'COR' is used by us for county totals even when 'County Remainder' does not appear in the original report where there were data for a separate but associated County Borough.
birth_area Text string (max.len.=94). General area containing the place of birth. This may be a region of England and Wales, another part of the British Isles or another part of the world; see notes above.
birth_detail Text string (max.len.=64). Where the birth area is a region of England and Wales, this column gives the county. Where the birth area is another part of the British Isles, this column is empty. Where the birth area is another part of the world, this column provides more information about status. See notes above.
unit_id Integer number. Sequence number running from 1 to 249 uniquely identifying each unit of enumeration.
row_id Integer number. Sequence number running from 1 to 76 uniquely identifying each row that we have included from the original table. This will often help in computing aggregates, as indicated above.
males Integer number. Number of males in relevant category.
females Integer number. Number of females in relevant category.
notes Text string (max.len.=258). [No description available]
cnty_unit Integer number. ID number for county containing the area, as defined in the AUO.
lgd_unit Integer number. ID number for Local Government District, as defined in the AUO.
bplace_type Text string (max.len.=24). Type of place identified as the birthplace.
rec_num Integer number. Unique number identifying row in table.