Warning! If you’re new to genealogy, this blog could lead you to spending many hours glued to your device, unearthing many family history treasures buried within the UK’s censuses.  

Why? Because the censuses are a really rich source of information to the family historian – leading you, for example, not only to the ancestor you were seeking, but also to their parents, siblings, children, neighbours and more – depending on who they were living with or happened to be visiting on the night the census was taken. You can also discover their address, occupation and where they were born – and, in the later censuses, a lot more personal information about them.

Here, we summarise what a new family historian needs to know about the censuses, using the questions we are often asked.

When were censuses taken?

National censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the UK* nearly every 10 years since 1801.

The first four censuses (1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831) were simple headcounts, with virtually no personal information recorded, so they are not of much use to family historians. (However, some local records offices do hold notes made by enumerators in the production of those censuses, and these might name people or heads of households. So, it could be worth checking with your local record office whether they have any such records.)

The 1841 census was the first to officially record the names of all individuals in a household or institution. Later censuses recorded even more information about those individuals (see below: ‘What will I find in each of the censuses?’).

However, contrary to popular opinion, the objective of the census was not to obtain detailed information about individuals, but to provide information about the population as a whole. Listing everyone by name, wherever they happened to be on a single night, was seen as the most efficient way to count everybody once, and nobody twice. From a genealogy perspective, however, it’s these names and details which are such a treasure trove in terms of answers – although be warned, they will usually raise many more questions! (For example, why was my 2x great grandfather listed with only 1 of his several children in the 1861 census? Answer: further research revealed the rest staying with other relatives who happened to live nearby!)

Which UK censuses are available to search?

The censuses from 1841 through to 1921 are available to search via various subscription sites, but some can also be searched for free – via our own FreeCEN database. The FreeCEN project began 25 years ago and, while the database is far from complete, it does now hold high-quality census data for more than 50 million individuals across the UK, from 1841 to 1901, so it’s always worth consulting. (For more information on FreeCEN, see the final 2 questions and answers at the end of this blog.)

As well as providing access to the full censuses from 1841 to 1921, subscription sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast also offer the opportunity to search the National Register of England and Wales, which was carried out in 1939 as a population count prior to the Second World War. This is a very valuable resource for family historians, since the census returns for 1931 for England and Wales were destroyed in an accidental fire during the Second World War; and there was no census taken in 1941 because of the disruption caused by the Second World War. Hence the 1939 National Register is the only census-type record of the population available between the censuses of 1921 and 1951.

You might wonder why we can’t yet access the later censuses (1951 onwards). This is because they are subject to the Census Act 1920, as amended by the Census (Confidentiality) Act 1991, which makes it an offence to disclose personal information held in them until 100 years after the date they were conducted. When the 1939 National Register was made available, a decision was taken that individuals’ records remain closed for 100 years from their date of birth or until proof of death. These records appear blanked out in the images.

What about the censuses for Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland?

National censuses in Scotland were taken on the same dates as those in England and Wales, but with differing legislation, governorship and archiving arrangements. The 19th-century Scottish censuses were all released after 50–80 years of closure, while the 1901 and 1911 censuses were made available to the public after their 100th anniversaries. You can search and view the census returns for Scotland from 1841 to 1921 at Scotland’s People (charges apply).

Irish censuses from before 1901 have not generally survived to the present day, for a variety of reasons. The 1901 and 1911 censuses for Ireland (all of which was then part of the UK) have been available for inspection since 1960 – they were made available earlier than the other British records, since Irish law is different on this matter. No census was taken in 1921 due to the disruption of the Irish War of Independence. The first census taken in the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) was in April 1926 and this will be opened to the public by the National Archives after 2026.  No census took place in Northern Ireland in 1931, but one took place there in 1937.

What will I find in each of the censuses?

(I have included examples from my own family’s story, to illustrate)
In the 1841 census, you will find the following information: Name. Age. Please note, for those aged over 15, the age was rounded down to the nearest 5 years; although this instruction was not obeyed in all cases. Occupation. Whether they were born in same county as where they were living: this was recorded as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ of resident county; and, if ‘No’, whether born in Scotland, Ireland or Foreign Parts, which was indicated by an 'S', 'I' or 'F', as appropriate. Religion – in Ireland only.

In the 1841 census, my 2x great grandfather George, is aged 19 and is an apprentice to a tailor in London.

In the 1851 census, a person’s relation to the head of the household was added, plus their marital status and place of birth. There was also a column to indicate whether a person was blind, deaf or dumb. In Ireland, it indicated which language was spoken by the person. The rounding down of ages was dropped, and actual ages were given.

In the 1851 census, my 2x great grandfather George, now aged 29 has diverged from tailoring into 'Bonnet-Shape’ Manufacturing. He is living in London with his first wife, young son, and a servant. Also present on the day the census is taken is his sister-in-law, an errand boy (14) and a girl (8) who is a 'visitor'.

In the 1861 census, nothing new was added or changed; but in the 1871 census, a person’s ‘economic status’ was added, and whether they were an ‘imbecile’, ‘idiot’ or ‘lunatic’.

By the 1871 census, however, George is living with his new wife, Hannah – my 2x great grandmother – and 2 of their children, plus 5 children from his first marriage, a servant and a nursemaid.

In the 1881 census, for Scotland, the language spoken by the person was now required; and in the 1891 census the language spoken in Wales was added, along with information about whether a person was an employer, an employee, or neither. A person also had to state the number of rooms they occupied, if it was fewer than five rooms.

In the 1881 census, my 2x great grandfather George (pictured below), now aged 59, has moved out to Hackney, and is living with my 2x great grandmother Hannah, 3 grown-up children from his first marriage, 1 son from his second marriage, plus a housemaid and servant. Later, I found 3 more of their sons at boarding school in Kent.

The story changes in 1891: my 2x great grandmother Hannah is now a widow, aged 43, living with 3 of her grown-up sons and 2 daughters aged 6 & 7. They have no servants, but they do have a 'boarder'.

By the 1901 census, the number of rooms in the dwelling was requested, and the person was asked to state whether they were an employer, ‘worker’ or ‘working on one's own account’ and whether ‘working at home or not’. In a tweak to the question about language spoken in Wales, children under three years of age were excluded.

In 1901, my 2x great grandmother Hannah, now aged 53, is living in 'five rooms' on her 'own means', with one daughter - my great grandmother Mabel, aged 17, who is a dressmaker's apprentice. Later, I found her other daughter as a visitor in a house along the road on the night the census was taken.

The 1911 census was the first UK Census where the Census Return for a particular household or institution was written directly by the ‘Head of Household’ (rather than by an enumerator). People were asked to state with which industry or service they were connected; how long couples had been married; how many children had been born alive, how many are still alive, and how many have died. It was the first time a person ‘born in a Foreign County’ was asked to state their ‘Nationality’. The terminology of the final column was changed to ‘INFIRMITY: Totally Deaf and Dumb, Totally Blind, Lunatic, Imbecile, Feeble-minded’.

By 1911, my 2x great grandmother Hannah, aged 63, has moved in with one of her sons, his wife, and 2 servants, and they are living in Kent. Hannah’s daughter, my great grandmother Mabel, is now aged 27, married and living with her husband and 3 daughters in Balham, one of whom is my grandmother, Nancy.

The 1921 census asked for a person’s place of work and industry, and whether a marriage had been dissolved by divorce.

By 1921, now aged 73, my 2x great grandmother Hannah was living with her daughter Mabel (pictured below) and her family, including my grandmother Nancy, in Tooting.

Finally, while the 1939 Register is not a census, it is arranged along similar lines and includes similar, if less detailed, information. It does, however, show exact dates of birth where census returns simply give a person’s age.

In the 1939 Register, my great grandmother Mabel has died, but my grandparents, Nancy and Teddy, are living with their 2 daughters, including my mother Anne, in Surrey.

So, the censuses are truly a treasure trove for the family historian!

How complete are the census records in FreeCEN?
The FreeCEN project aims to provide a free-to-view, online, searchable database of UK census returns. The project began in July 1999, with a pilot transcription for Devon, and the database now holds census data for more than 50 million individuals, from 1841 to 1901.

Currently, the 1861 census is the most fully transcribed (70%), followed by the 1841 and 1891 censuses (50% and 48%, respectively). Transcriptions of the 1881, 1901 and 1911 have only just been started. (See the most current information about FreeCEN transcriptions here: https://www.freecen.org.uk/freecen2_contents?locale=en

We are always in need of volunteers willing to undertake the transcription of census pieces or make available transcriptions that they have already completed. If you would like to know more about transcribing, or are interested in being a technical volunteer, please visit our Volunteer page.Transcriber Registration | FreeCEN

How do I search the census records in FreeCEN?
To search the FreeCEN records, simply visit Search Query | FreeCEN and complete the fields with as much information as you know, and then click on ‘Search’. If you only have your ancestor’s name, this may be enough.

To search census records in sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast, you will first need to pay a subscription to them; although you may be able to access their ‘Library Editions’ for free through membership of your local library or family history society.

Happy searching – and please do let us know what you find!
 
 *The UK is defined as England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales together with the Crown Dependencies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, and including the Orkney and Hebrides Islands, provided that each was the responsibility of the Crown at the time that the census was taken.

 
Sources:
Wikipedia, The National Archives (Census images are Crown Copyright), Free UK Genealogy

The new FreeBMD website (‘FreeBMD2’) is designed to provide a seamless experience across all devices, ensuring that it looks great and functions smoothly on smaller screens. Additionally, we are committed to making FreeBMD2 more accessible to everyone, regardless of ability. We’ve updated colors, language, and functionality to align with WCAG AA accessibility standards, making the site easier to use for all.

We've been working closely with user experience volunteers to design and test a new interface that improves upon the existing site while maintaining all the features users love. Our goal is to match—and ultimately surpass—the capabilities of the original FreeBMD website (FreeBMD1), ensuring an intuitive and efficient research experience.

What’s New?

The new FreeBMD website will bring a host of improvements, including

• Better mobile and tablet compatibility – Ensuring an optimal experience for users on all devices.
• Improved navigation and usability – Making powerful tools easier to find and reducing the number of clicks needed to get results.
• A more intuitive search experience – Helping users identify relevant records more efficiently, even when data might not be recorded exactly as expected.
• A cohesive look and feel – Aligning FreeBMD with our sister sites, FreeCEN and FreeREG, for a unified family history research experience.
• Faster updates to help and documentation – Using a simple HTML interface to keep users informed with the latest guidance and resources.
• A solid foundation for future enhancements – Leveraging the same underlying code as FreeCEN and FreeREG, allowing improvements to be shared across all Free UK Genealogy websites.

Transitioning to the New FreeBMD

We understand that change can be daunting, and we want to reassure our users that the current FreeBMD website will remain accessible for some time while we continue refining and enhancing the new version. We are committed to ensuring that FreeBMD2 meets — and exceeds — the capabilities of FreeBMD1 before fully transitioning.

Looking Ahead

At launch, FreeBMD2 will include new tools designed to enhance the research process, with more exciting features planned for future updates. We are also working to improve search functionality, making it easier to navigate historical place names and uncover the records you seek.

We have recently completed and filed our annual accounts for Free UK Genealogy CIO, the charity that operates FreeBMD, FreeCEN and FreeREG projects. Our 2023 accounts show that we have consolidated the progress made in 2022, when we reported a £43k surplus. In 2023, we increased our income and endowments but also increased our spending on our charitable activities and so ended the year with a £37k surplus.

This leaves us in a strong financial position going forward into 2024. As always, financial stability is not an end in itself but it means we can continue to focus on supporting our websites, our volunteers and delivering our objectives – making genealogy records available –  in the best way possible.

Achievements

Let’s start by taking a closer look at our achievements in 2023. Headlines include: increasing our income from adverts by £21k (24%) and donations by £1.6k (6.4%); and also surpassing our Big Give target. We also held our very successful Strategy Weekend which brought together staff, volunteers and trustees to discuss priorities and create our strategy for the next decade: “Quality, Value, Growth" (see more on this below).

In addition, we improved our processes by taking ownership of FreeComETT, and completing the move to CSVProc for automated checking and error reporting in FreeCEN. We also recruited a Technical Project Manager volunteer for FreeBMD2.
We are also proud to report that we became a Real Living Wage Employer.

A year of consolidation
Now let’s look at our 2023 figures, which reflect some real highs, but also some challenges:

Note on the numbers: We have revised our standard measure of active volunteers which now uses transcribers who have uploaded at least 100 records to FreeBMD, or at least one file of transcriptions in FreeREG/FreeCEN in the year.  Due to the change in measure, comparative figures are not available for FreeCEN.

Following significant changes in people in the previous year, 2023 was a year of consolidation. Whilst our financial position strengthened, our number of transcribers has continued to fall, as the projects mature. We continue to add new transcriptions to the projects, although at a slower rate than previous years. 

That said, the good news is that an impressive 11.8 million new records were added in 2023 – taking us to over half a billion records in total. We would like to thank ALL our hard-working volunteers and our staff for this achievement.

Future strategy
Our Strategy Weekend was held in Birmingham in June 2023, where we agreed a new approach to put our mission at the centre of how we organise and operate.

Our plans and targets for 2024 aim to revitalise our projects and focus on growing the value that our users benefit from our high-quality transcriptions. 

Quality is the basis for our tagline “human transcription”. Good Quality for us means:

• Our transcriptions accurately represent what is written in the transcribed record (“Type What You See”)
• If there is alternative information that is different - e.g. if it’s thought that the census taker misspelt the name - we seek to include that information as well
• We seek to have effective processes to measure and manage the accuracy of transcriptions
• We seek to understand how the quality of our transcriptions compare to others
• We seek to make transcription as easy and efficient as possible for our volunteers

Value for our users is fundamental to the public benefit in our charitable objectives. Good Value for us means:

• We are committed to Open Data so our transcriptions are more accessible, more usable, and free to use, forever
• If there is alternative information is different - e.g. if it’s thought that the census taker misspelt the name - we seek to include that information as well
• We seek to meet Accessibility Standards for our websites
• We seek to understand what makes our records uniquely useful to our users
• We focus on transcribing records that are the most useful to our users
• We work to improve the way users access our data so they can be most useful

Growth in our record sets is a key way to maximise the benefit we provide. Growth for us means:

• Increasing the number of people using our data
• Increasing the coverage of our transcriptions
• We seek to increase the availability of source records
• We seek to grow our community of volunteers
• We are open to expand the scope of transcriptions, where there is value
• We will never compromise on our standards - “Quality over Speed”
• Growth must always be sustainable - financially and operationally

We look forward to reporting on the first year of progress made with this new strategy in our 2024 annual report.

We often hear that it was the Victorians who invented many of our Christmas traditions.

And this was a fact substantiated by some research into our Free UK Genealogy databases to see who we could find with a link to Christmas.

The results revealed authors of Christmas carols and books; the inventor of the Christmas cracker; and the designer of the first printed Christmas card – to name but a few. And yes, they were all born or lived during Queen Victoria’s reign!

The research was conducted for creating this year’s seasonal social media posts – but, for those who are not on social media or who missed any of the posts, we have put all our findings into one blog.

Why not make a coffee, grab a mince pie, and enjoy reading about some of the Victorians who helped to ‘invent’ the Christmas traditions we still follow today?

1843 - First ever Christmas card depicts a small child drinking wine!

In 1843, the artist John Callcott Horsley was commissioned to design the first commercially-produced Christmas card.

The card depicts two acts of charity (feeding the hungry and clothing the naked) and also a family party scene, in which three generations of a family – including a young child – are seen drinking wine to celebrate the season.

Such an image might cause raised eyebrows even today, but in the 1840s with the temperance movement gaining popularity in the UK, the card certainly created some controversy. However, it did not stop people from buying them!

Initially, 1,000 copies were printed and then coloured by hand, ready to be personalised with the customer’s handwritten greeting. 

Priced at 1 shilling each, the cards were expensive when you consider, for example, in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (also published in 1843), that Ebenezer Scrooge pays his clerk Bob Cratchit 15 shillings a week.

That said, a further batch was printed and a total of 2,050 cards were sold that year – and the idea of sending pre-printed Christmas cards had begun.

John Callcott Horsley, the card’s designer, was an artist and designer born in London in 1817. Records of his two marriages can be found in our FreeBMD records. He married Elvira Walter in 1846, who sadly died in 1852. John married Rosamund Haden in 1854, and they had several children. He moved the family to Cranbrook, Kent in 1861, where he became part of the ‘artist's colony’ there. This group of painters were inspired by 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters and painted scenes of everyday rural domestic life. John also maintained a home in London, where his death was registered in 1903.

1843 - Who sent the first commercially-produced Christmas card?

So, it was John Callcott Horsley who was commissioned to design the first commercially-produced Christmas card - but who sent the first card?

The answer is Henry Cole, a British civil servant and inventor who facilitated many of Britain’s innovations in commerce and education in the 19th century. It was Henry who commissioned the card’s design, and Henry who then wrote and sent a few of the cards – before selling the remainder.

The people depicted on the card celebrating the season actually comprised three generations of Henry’s own family - so the design was very personal. The cards were printed and then coloured by hand, ready to be handwritten by the sender.

In 1840, Henry had played a key role in the introduction of the Penny Post – so introducing the idea of people exchanging Christmas cards was possibly an astute one. He was also involved in managing the highly successful Great Exhibition of 1851 (for which he was knighted in 1875), and was the founding director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Henry was born in 1808 in Bath, Somerset, and later lived and worked in London. According to his obituary in The Times in 1882, Sir Henry Cole had enjoyed ‘an active, beneficent and well-spent life’. He had ‘many difficulties to encounter, many opponents to vanquish … but the work of his life was great in conception and great in execution and [he] did as much as any man of his time to recover the industrial arts of his country from the almost hopeless degradation into which they had fallen’.

Henry’s death (aged 73 in Kensington) on 15th April 1882 can be found in our FreeBMD records, registered in June 1882.

Although Henry’s Christmas cards were considered expensive in 1843 (at 1 shilling each), that was nothing compared to their re-sale value 158 years later! In 2001, one of Henry’s first Christmas cards, which was sent to his grandmother in 1843, was sold at auction for £22,500.

1843 - Can you name the #1 Christmas book?

In the lists of best Christmas stories of all time, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is invariably top – which is pretty impressive for a book first published in 1843.

A Christmas Carol is a novella by the literary genius Charles Dickens. It recounts the tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He left school aged 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Charles edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, and hundreds of short stories. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and many regard him as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

Charles campaigned for children’s rights, education and other social reforms, and he lectured and performed extensively. His novels and short stories are still widely read today.

Published on 19 December 1843, the first edition of A Christmas Carol sold out by Christmas Eve; by the end of the following year, a further 13 editions had been released. In 1849, Charles began public readings of the story, which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death.
We can find Charles’ burial record (at Westminster Abbey) in our FreeREG records.

A Christmas Carol has never been out of print. It truly captured the early Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit. No wonder it is still top of those favourite Christmas book lists!

1846 - What was the inspiration for the Christmas cracker?

In 1830, a seven-year-old boy named Tom Smith began his apprenticeship in a baker and confectioner’s shop in London. Over the years, he became a master in his craft, experimenting with new designs in his spare time. He opened his own shop in London's East End in the 1840s, baking wedding cakes and making confectionery on the premises.

In 1846, he visited Paris and came across the French ‘bonbon’ – a sugared almond wrapped in a twist of tissue paper. He took the idea back to London, and it proved very popular, particularly at Christmas time.
Developing the idea further, Tom was inspired to add a "crackle" element after hearing the crackle of a log he had put on the fire. The size of the paper wrapper had to be increased to incorporate the banger mechanism, and the sweet itself was eventually dropped, to be replaced by a trinket – of the kind we know today. The public dubbed the new product as the "cracker", and rival varieties soon came on the market.

The other elements of the modern cracker—the gifts, paper hats and varied designs—were all introduced by Tom Smith's son, Walter Smith, to differentiate his product from those rival cracker manufacturers.

Is Thomas Smith in our UKFreeGen records? As any family historian will know, with a common name like this, it can be difficult to find the right one, and another source can be necessary to verify. Thanks to Wikipedia, we know that he was born in Newington (then in Surrey) in 1823, the son of Priscilla and Thomas Smith. So, when we searched the Newington parish records in our FreeREG database, we could be sure we had found the transcription of the correct baptism record, with parents Priscilla and Thomas.

1846 - Who published the first recipe for Christmas pudding?

The answer is Eliza Acton, an English poet and food writer, in 1846. Her recipe for ‘the Author’s Christmas pudding’ appeared in her cookery book – which was one of the first such books to be produced in Britain, and which remained in print for over 50 years. 

But it might never have existed, had her publisher (Longman) not politely declined her latest book of poems – and suggested that she write a cookery book instead.
Eliza took the advice, although it took her a full 10 years to write and publish Modern Cookery for Private Families. The book introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients, exact quantities and cooking times for each recipe.

The recipe is similar to that for ‘plum pudding’, but Eliza was the first to name it ‘Christmas pudding’. Interestingly, neither plum pudding nor Christmas pudding actually includes any ‘plums’ in the modern sense of the word. Since the late 18th century, the word ‘plum’ had been used to indicate ‘something sweet or agreeable’.

Eliza describes her Christmas Pudding as a ‘remarkably light small rich pudding’ which she suggests could be served with ‘German, Wine or Punch sauce’. Her pudding has experienced something of a revival recently, featuring on YouTube channels and in the book How to Cook the Victorian Way, published in 2020.
Born in Sussex in 1799, Eliza ran a girls’ boarding school in Suffolk for a while, before spending time in France. On her return to England in 1826, she published her poetry, prior to her cookery book in 1845. She became the cookery correspondent for the weekly magazines The Ladies' Companion and Household Words, and began researching for a book on nourishment for the ill. Sadly, Eliza suffered from poor health herself for much of her life, and died aged 59 at home in 1859.

Eliza, then aged 51, can be found in our UK FreeCEN records in the 1851 census for Hastings, living with her mother Elizabeth (77) and sister Catherine (47).

1853 - Who was ‘father of all the wretched’?

Good King Wenceslas is a well-loved Christmas carol. It is based on the legend of the Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935), who went on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (26 Dec). The duke was not a king in his lifetime but had that status conferred on him after his death. A preacher from the 12th century notes: “he went around to God's churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched.”

While Saint Wenceslaus does not appear in our records, the English author of this famous carol does!

John Mason Neale (b1818) wrote the carol in 1853 to fit the melody of the 13th-century spring carol Tempus adest floridum (Eastertime Is Come), which he had found in a Finnish song collection of 1582. John was an Anglican priest, scholar, hymn writer and translator. More than anyone else, he made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns.

John can be found in the following records: FreeCEN - 1851 census and 1861 census; and FreeREG - burial record, 1866.

1859 - As With Gladness: No presents on Christmas Day?

That was certainly the case on the first Christmas Day – since the Three Kings did not bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus until 12 days after his birth: on 6th January. (Some scholars say it was actually up to two years later!)

In Christianity, this date which celebrates the visit of the Kings is known as Epiphany (Greek: manifestation, striking appearance) – and refers to the realisation that Jesus is the Son of God.

And it was on Epiphany Sunday morning in 1859, that a young man who was confined to his bed with a near fatal illness, wrote a lovely carol about this realisation. As With Gladness Men of Old was penned by William Chatterton Dix when his illness rendered him unable to attend the Epiphany service at his church.

William was a marine insurance agent by trade, but wrote poetry and hymns in his spare time.

Organist William Henry Monk later adapted a tune by Stuttgart organist Conrad Kocher as the music for the carol. (The same melody is used in the hymn For the Beauty of the Earth.)

Born in Bristol in 1837, William can be found as a 13-year-old scholar in our FreeCEN records (1851 census) as a ‘visitor’ at a school in Frome, Somerset. He did recover from his illness, married, had children, and wrote many other carols and hymns before he died aged 61. His death, in 1898, can be found in our FreeBMD records. William is buried in Cheddar, Somerset, where his grave stone describes him as ‘Hymn Writer’. Not much more is known about his life; however, his strong belief lives on in the words of his hymns and carols.

1861 - When was the first mince pie recipe without meat published?

The earliest known mention of a mince pie is in the 1390 English cookbook A Forme of Cury, which refers to a pie made with meat, spices, and other ingredients as ‘tartes of flesh’. By 1861, it seems ‘meat’ was an optional ingredient, since the original version of Mrs Beeton’s famous Book of Household Management gave two mincemeat recipes – one with, and one without meat. (Later editions would only include the meat-free version.)

So, who was Mrs Beeton – and why do we consider her an authority on the subject?

Isabella Mayson was born in 1836 in London. Her father died when she was young, and her mother married a widower with four children. They had a further 13 children together, and Isabella was heavily involved in her siblings' upbringing. The experience gave her much insight and experience in how to manage a family and its household.

In 1856, Isabella married Samuel Beeton, a wealthy publisher. She began to write articles on cooking and household management for his magazines. This led to the publication in 1861 of her Book of Household Management which sold nearly two million copies within the first seven years.

Isabella and Samuel Beeton can be found in the census for that same year (1861) in our FreeCEN records. They are living in Harrow, Middlesex, with their baby son and two servants.

Isabella was only 28 when she died in 1865 of an infection following the birth of her fourth child. Despite this, her name is still associated with knowledge and authority on Victorian cooking and home management today. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary states that by 1891 the term Mrs Beeton had become used as a generic name for a domestic authority.

The Book of Household Management has been edited, revised and enlarged several times since Isabella's death and is still in print today.

1862 - Did Dick Whittington even have a cat?

Since the late 19th century, pantomimes have become synonymous with entertainment at Christmas. Most are based on fairy tales, but there is one favourite panto that is based on a real person: Dick Whittington.
Richard (Dick) Whittington (b.1354) was a very successful dealer in materials and fine silks in London. He was mayor of London three times, and then served as MP for London in 1416. As to whether he ever had a cat (as in the pantomime), there is much debate!

Some say that Dick owed much of his wealth to the coal trade and that colliers were then known as ‘cats’, or that he had invented the ship known as a ‘cat’, in which coal was transported in those days. Both nobody knows the truth – only that the ‘cat’ connection was firmly established by Elizabethan times.

While Dick cannot be found in our Free UK Genealogy records, we can find Henry James Byron, the author of one of the first pantomime scripts to feature the famous London mayor!

Henry was a prolific English dramatist, as well as an editor, journalist, director, theatre manager, novelist and actor. Born in Manchester in 1835 and educated in Essex and London, Henry first pursued a medical career. When this failed, he turned to acting and was an aspiring playwright in the 1850s. He found success in writing burlesques and other punny plays in the 1860s, and also became an editor of humorous magazines.

Beginning in 1859, Henry wrote a sequence of Christmas pantomimes. In 1862, his version of the Dick Whittington story saw Dick chased by a villain in a hot air balloon – a nod to the fact that this was the year in which two English balloonists had made the news for ascending to a record-breaking altitude.

We find Henry in our FreeBMD records in 1856, when he married his first wife, Martha Foulkes, in London. 
Henry retired in 1882, suffering with tuberculosis, and died in 1884 at the age of 49. He certainly left a huge legacy in the form of over 150 dramatic pieces created during the mid-Victorian era.

1924 - Ding Dong Merrily on High

Ding Dong Merrily on High: this jolly carol has been ringing out at carol services across the UK since 1924.

But did you know that ringing large bells to call worshippers to church services only began in the early Middle Ages? Prior to that, methods included playing trumpets, hitting wooden planks, shouting or using a courier!
In AD604, the pope sanctioned the use of bells. By the 8th century, large bells were made by casting metal originating from Campania in Italy. This led to the word 'campanology' meaning the scientific and musical study of bells. This word is sometimes erroneously used in place of 'bell ringer'.

Author of Ding Dong Merrily on High, George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848-1934), was an English Anglican priest who wrote mostly religious verse, both original and translated from ancient authors. He was also a keen bell ringer!

Ding Dong Merrily on High first appeared in A Cambridge Carol Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter and Other Seasons, published by George and his frequent collaborator, composer Charles Wood.

George appears in our FreeCEN records (1891 census) aged 42, where he was Rector at Chelmondiston.

1925 - 100 years since publication of popular Christmas cake recipe!

The invention of a self-raising flour led to the publication of a cook book that is still in print over 100 years later – and which includes a much-loved Christmas cake recipe enjoyed by generations of families.

Thomas Bell, creator of Bell’s Royal self-raising flour, was born in 1848 in Longhorsley, a village north of Newcastle. His parents owned a grocer’s shop, and it was here that Thomas experimented with rising agents in flour.

In 1875, he set up his own grocery and tea company Bell’s Royal (later BeRo) in Newcastle, selling flour, dried fruit, cereals, tea and coffee. However, self-raising flour was considered expensive, so to increase its popularity, Thomas held a series of exhibitions in the 1920s where freshly baked scones, pastries and cakes were sold for a shilling to visitors. People soon asked for the recipes, so Thomas produced a BeRo cook book containing recipes designed to feed families on a low budget. The book became very popular – and made BeRo flour the best known in the North.

Published in 1925, the third edition of the book included the famous BeRo Christmas cake recipe that is still baked by many people today.

Thomas Bell died that same year, but his descendants continued to expand the company across the country. Around 40 million copies of the BeRo cook books have been sold to date, and the 41st edition (published in 2009) can still be purchased, via the BeRo website.

A record of Thomas’s baptism (in 1847 at St Helen’s Church, Longhorsley) can be found in our FreeREG records, and his death in Newcastle in 1925 is found in FreeBMD.

1938 - Why did a nativity play spark controversy?

He That Should Come is a one-act nativity play written by Dorothy L Sayers and broadcast by the BBC on Christmas Day in 1938.

Dorothy was an accomplished and popular playwright, religious commentator, and scholar – but she is probably better known for her detective novels about the upper-class amateur sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey. 
When writing He That Should Come, Dorothy had two main objectives. She wanted to use ordinary prose and everyday speech patterns with no tones of reverence, to make it more ‘real’. She also wanted listeners to comprehend how Jesus was born into a deeply problematic world (a territory overrun by an army of occupation). 

So, she told the story through the voices of the three ‘wise men’ asking whether the birth of a particular child could possibly fulfil their desires; and she focused on the conflict of opinion by those in the courtyard of the inn at Bethlehem. Ultimately, it is the shepherds whose gifts are presented when the Holy Family is revealed.

The play caused much controversy because some felt this use of realism and modern language was inappropriate. Three years later, Dorothy’s most well-known play, The Man Born to be King, also caused a stir when it was broadcast on the BBC – this time for its Jesus who spoke modern English. However, the play is now regarded as an important work.

Born in 1893, Dorothy went to Somerville College, Oxford, graduating in medieval French. She then worked as a copywriter until success as an author brought her financial independence. She wrote 11 novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. From the mid-1930s, she wrote plays, mostly on religious themes. In the 1940s, her main preoccupation was translating the three books of Dante’s Divine Comedy into colloquial English. She died at her home in Essex in 1957.

We can find Dorothy’s birth record in June 1893 in Oxford, in our FreeBMD database.

We hope you enjoyed reading about these people with a connection to Christmas found in our records. Those Victorians certainly helped to revive a passion for the season!

Sources: UK FreeCEN, UK FreeREG, UK FreeBMD, Wikipedia, The Hymns & Carols of Christmas, List Muse, ShortForm, WeBuyBooks, V&A Museum, History in the Making, Countrylife.co.uk, BBC, London Walking Tours, BeRo, Longhorsley Local History Society, Blackwells.