Helper notes and answers
This is a census return for a different part of Westminster in 1851. Lots of the men’s jobs that have been listed are for professions that are no longer needed today. Coachman, stonemason (very few people are trained as stonemasons today because we use machines and mass produced products). Bricklayers, carpenters and labourers are still jobs today, but the work they entail is probably quite different to the work that was carried out by these roles in 1851!
Women worked as laundresses (washing clothes), or making more delicate things like straw bonnets. This would have been seen as feminine work.
This census return is also from Westminster but from a different part.
- Can you spot some of the different jobs that that men are listed as doing? Do any of these jobs exist today? Why not?
- What jobs did women do at this time?
- Find the name of a person the census that interests you. Can you spot their age, job and where they were born?