1851 England and Wales ancient counties

Satchell, M. and Shaw-Taylor, L.M.W.S. and Wrigley, E.A. and Kitson, P.K. and Newton, G.H. (2018). 1851 England and Wales ancient counties. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-852942

These data were created as part of a research program directed by Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Tony Wrigley, which aims ultimately to reconstruct the evolution of the occupational structure of Britain from the late medieval period down to the early twentieth century.

Data description (abstract)

ArcGIS shapefile of 244 polygons providing boundary and attribute data for the fifty-five ancient counties of England and Wales as given in the 1851 census for England and Wales.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Satchell M.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3340-9825
Shaw-Taylor L.M.W.S.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure	http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3703-7689
Wrigley E.A.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
Kitson P.K.
Newton G.H.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure

Sponsors:

Economic and Social Research Council, The Leverhulme Trust , The British Academy

Grant reference:

RES-000-23-1579

Topic classification:

History
Demography (population, vital statistics and censuses)

Keywords:

maps, digitized map data, boundaries, attributes, census data, 1851, GIS

Project title:

The changing occupational structure of nineteenth century Britain

Grant holders:

Dr Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Professor E. A. Wrigley

Project dates:

From	To
1 March 2006	28 February 2009

Date published:

06 Apr 2018 15:44

Last modified:

30 Jul 2018 13:10

Coverage and Methodology

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
1 March 2006	28 February 2009

Country:

United Kingdom, England and Wales

Data collection method:

These data derive from the 173 digital maps of the boundaries of English and Welsh parishes and their subdivisions produced by Roger Kain and Richard Oliver based on the listing in the 1851 census. The maps were subsequently converted into a single GIS by Burton et al. The GIS attribute data were checked, edited and enhanced with extra data from the census by Max Satchell, Tony Wrigley and a small army of research assistants with technical support from Peter Kitson and Gill Newton. Max Satchell checked and in some cases edited the GIS polygon data using a variety of cartographic and documentary sources. The work involved changing one or more elements of information about place, parish, county, or three figure census number for 2,461 (10.8 per cent) of 22,729 lines of data in the Kain and Oliver GIS. This editing process saw the redigitisation of 644 of the 22,729 polygons, the deletion of 81 polygons, and the digitisation of 529 new polygons. The upshot of this exercise was that at its end all 23,177 polygons could be assigned to an 1851 ancient county.

Observation unit:

Geographic unit

Kind of data:

Geospatial

Type of data:

Census data , Geospatial data , Historical data

Resource language:

English

Access and Administration

Data sourcing, processing and preparation:

Data sources: Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R. (2001). Historic Parishes of England and Wales : an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 4348, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-4348-1. Southall, H.R., Burton, N. (2004). GIS of the Ancient Parishes of England and Wales, 1500-1850. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 4828, http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-4828-1.

Rights owners:

Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Satchell M.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3340-9825
Shaw-Taylor L.M.W.S.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure	http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3703-7689
Wrigley E.A.	The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure
Southall H.	University of Southampton
Burton N.	University of Southampton
Kain R.J.P	School of Advanced Study, University of London
Oliver R.R.	University of Exeter