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59
CENSUS, 1951.
The Fifteenth Census of the population of England and Wales
was taken on the 8th April, 1951. The figures provided in the
Preliminary Report, in order to meet the more urgent needs, are
provisional and relate to the numbers only, by sex, of the population
for England and Wales as a whole and for an extensive series of local
areas. They are derived from local summaries rapidly compiled
and then assembled centrally, and they are subject to confirmation
in the substantive Census Reports which are based upon a central
check of the actual Census returns. Judging by past experience,
although the figures are provisional, material discrepancies are
unlikely.
The previous (Fourteenth) Census of England and Wales was
taken in April, 1931. There was thus, for the first time since the
series began in 1801, an interval of twenty years instead of the
customary ten. The unprecedented length of the interval, the
limited scope of the 1931 Census and the far-reaching changes in
legislation and in social conditions since 1931 all had their influence
on the range and content of the Census of 1951.
The 1931 Census had been restricted for reasons of economy
and because it was then intended to take a Census quinquennially.
For reasons of economy this project had to be dropped, and the
war prevented a Census in 1941.
An innovation is being introduced on this occasion which goes
some way to meet the complaint that the national tabulations of
the Census results are not available for two or three years. A copy
has been made of one schedule in every hundred relating to private
households, and from the one per cent. sample so obtained has been
produced a preliminary outline of the chief features to be expected
from the main tables, which will appear later.
Observations.
It is estimated that there are in Leyton 27,650 separately
assessed dwellings in which the 34,800 households are housed.
As seen from the tables 14,700 households live in shared
dwellings, i.e., 42 per cent. of the total households. There are no
households in Leyton in which the density of occupation is more
than two persons per room according to the One Per Cent. Sample
Tables.