Finding 1861 Census details

[David Bigcheeseplant]

How do I go about looking for details on the 1861 census,  I would like to find out who was the station master and other railway workers at High Wycombe in 1861 and where they lived. When I put it into Google is send me to various commercial web sites like ancestry, as I don't know names yet I want to search on addresses can this be done?

David   

[Graham108]

This any good?

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1795909

[davepen]

From memory, as you say the commercial sites, such as Ancestry, are more focused on Family History, and the search tool is limited.  I was trying to find about the history of my house.  Ancestry membership allows one to see the orginal scans of the census.  So for a small village it is possible to find the station, if only by just flicking through the returns.  In my location, the station was in a small hamlet, (Horsebridge, LWSR) so can be found by a place search.   I did notice a porter staying at one of the pubs in the village, I think he married the daughter.  However at the time, houses here didn't have the names they do now, but rough locations can be found from proximity to local farms or vicarages.  If you don't want to join the commercial sites, the county's town's central library may provide access.

[Fishoutofwater]

Findmypast.co.uk is pretty useful for such info.

You need to create an account (free) but do not have to subscribe.

 

When logged-in select "search" from the menu along the top, then click on "census, land & surveys".

That brings up a form to complete:

Do not enter a name, but input the census date (under WHEN), then the location (under WHERE),

then scroll down to "optional keywords" and input "Station Master". 

click on the view results button and voila! - John Briggenshaw

There is a blue button to the right-hand side; click to view either the original census form or a transcription.

You will then be invited to take out a subscription but IGNORE that and scroll down until you come a line

"Commitment shy? Buy the record on it's own"  Select the arrow on the right and you can then pay to see just that record.  Seem to be usually 50p for a transcription or £1 for the original.  Prices do vary.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Be ruddy careful about subscriptions on these sites.

 

I’d rate myself as pretty good at avoiding subscriptions traps, and have never got caught in one before, but got fully entangled by Ancestry.com when I signed-up for a year in order to help my son with a school project. The information available once we got our heads around how best to search was fantastic, but the subscription stuck like a burr. Like all of these, it relies on you forgetting about it, auto-renewal, and a mind-numbingly complex system to un-enrol. I have now escaped, because they’ve been compelled by law to make escaping ever so slightly less difficult, but not before getting dipped for two years subscription  that I didn’t want.

 

Caveat emptor!

[Fishoutofwater]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Be ruddy careful about subscriptions on these sites.

 

I’d rate myself as pretty good at avoiding subscriptions traps, and have never got caught in one before, but got fully entangled by Ancestry.com when I signed-up for a year in order to help my son with a school project. The information available once we got our heads around how best to search was fantastic, but the subscription stuck like a burr. Like all of these, it relies on you forgetting about it, auto-renewal, and a mind-numbingly complex system to un-enrol. I have now escaped, because they’ve been compelled by law to make escaping ever so slightly less difficult, but not before getting dipped for two years subscription  that I didn’t want.

 

Caveat emptor!

Wholeheartedly concur.

[Rivercider]

I am a member of Findmypast, and did some research on my family history, though I have never really got to grips with the search functions.

I have had a quick go at searching the 1861 census using various relevant search terms, no obvious High Wycombe station master has shown up. I have found 33 year old William Harrock living as a boarder in Railway Place Wycombe, his job was railway porter, and he was born in 1833 in Wiltshire,

 

Also in Railway Place was 31 year old Frederick E Godwin, his occupation GWR Porter.

In fact there are a lot of railway employees in Railway Place as you may expect, but I find it clunky finding my way about.

 

cheers

[David Bigcheeseplant]

3 hours ago, Rivercider said:

I am a member of Findmypast, and did some research on my family history, though I have never really got to grips with the search functions.

I have had a quick go at searching the 1861 census using various relevant search terms, no obvious High Wycombe station master has shown up. I have found 33 year old William Harrock living as a boarder in Railway Place Wycombe, his job was railway porter, and he was born in 1833 in Wiltshire,

 

Also in Railway Place was 31 year old Frederick E Godwin, his occupation GWR Porter.

In fact there are a lot of railway employees in Railway Place as you may expect, but I find it clunky finding my way about.

 

cheers

That's really useful, Railway Terrace directly by the old station has not one person listed which is railway employee, so Railway Place seems the area maybe some of the employees lived. Could you look who is listed at the Railway Tavern and the Prince of Wales pub.

[Rivercider]

3 hours ago, David Bigcheeseplant said:

That's really useful, Railway Terrace directly by the old station has not one person listed which is railway employee, so Railway Place seems the area maybe some of the employees lived. Could you look who is listed at the Railway Tavern and the Prince of Wales pub.

Sorry I don't know the area at all, some of the place names seem to have changed also.

I cannot find any reference to those pub names. Was High Wycombe formerly known as Chipping (or Chepping) Wycombe?

The free site Freecen for 1861 shows W C Head as a 24 year old railway porter living in Railway Place. 

 

cheers 

[JeremyC]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Be ruddy careful about subscriptions on these sites.

 

I’d rate myself as pretty good at avoiding subscriptions traps, and have never got caught in one before, but got fully entangled by Ancestry.com when I signed-up for a year in order to help my son with a school project. The information available once we got our heads around how best to search was fantastic, but the subscription stuck like a burr. Like all of these, it relies on you forgetting about it, auto-renewal, and a mind-numbingly complex system to un-enrol. I have now escaped, because they’ve been compelled by law to make escaping ever so slightly less difficult, but not before getting dipped for two years subscription  that I didn’t want.

 

Caveat emptor!

Check out your local library service. Edinburgh libraries have free access to one of these services for members. The only disadvantage is you can't access it from home, but have to use a computer in a library branch.

[doilum]

I ran this past younger daughter who works in a branch library. We did a similar search for the Cutsyke station in Castleford. Most of her advice has already been suggested but she stressed the need to search under the names of political boundaries that applied at the time. Some of these may be unfamiliar to present day residents.

Try the most generic of search words such as "railway" as well as more specific ones like "station master". The job descriptions may have varied and may have.been recorded differently by individual enumerators. If you can access Find my Past  it is worth looking for newspaper links. This can turn up trump's if there was any scandal or tradgedy linked to a railway employee.

 

[Nearholmer]

Kelly's Directory?

 

I'm pretty sure they gave at least the name of the SM.

 

Leicester Uni has a lot of them free to read on-line, and I spent ages in Buckingham and Padbury in 1911 one day when it was cold and wet outside.

 

I cant quickly find anything near to 1861, but here is 1883 https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/38992/rec/9 where we have John Alfred Carter as Station Master, and Alfred Belcher as manager of the goods department.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Fishoutofwater]

42 minutes ago, doilum said:

I ran this past younger daughter who works in a branch library. We did a similar search for the Cutsyke station in Castleford. Most of her advice has already been suggested but she stressed the need to search under the names of political boundaries that applied at the time. Some of these may be unfamiliar to present day residents.

Try the most generic of search words such as "railway" as well as more specific ones like "station master". The job descriptions may have varied and may have.been recorded differently by individual enumerators. If you can access Find my Past  it is worth looking for newspaper links. This can turn up trump's if there was any scandal or tradgedy linked to a railway employee.

 

Not only do boundaries and names change but whole roads are altered or even removed and property identities are changed - particularly that names are dropped in favour of numbers. Old maps are good reference source; found none better than the National Library of Scotland.

 

[Jim Martin]

On 19/07/2022 at 15:46, Rivercider said:

Was High Wycombe formerly known as Chipping (or Chepping) Wycombe?

 

Yes, until 1866. I believe there's still a parish of Chepping Wycombe, but it no longer coincides with the boundaries of the borough.

 

Jim

[Morello Cherry]

Do the WRC or GWR records for the station still exist? Generally this would point to 3 or 4 places for information - York (NRM), local archives (town, county or local university library), national archives (Kew), 'private' archives (for example a railway heritage centre in this case probably at Didcot).

 

It can not be stressed enough that the information you pay for on ancestry.com etc is available for free at the PRO in Kew. Kew is an absolutely lovely site, it is within walking distance of the station and it is full of people on hand who can help you with your research. If you were going to invest money in doing the research I would invest it in a train ticket to Kew.

 

If you can find the company archives you might get names. That makes searching the census information easier because then you have a specific name to look for - even if it is something like Smith.

 

Other potential sources might be accident returns - were there any accidents at or near the station in the period you are interested in. Witnesses are interviewed and this is often a good way to get the names of signalmen, porters, station masters, guards etc etc

 

I would look to see if there is any information in the WRC files in the PRO (alongside the other fond mentioned earlier of station masters in 1855) https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C12956

 

If I drew a blank there I pop an email to the GWR trust archive - https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/408/great-western-trust-museum-archive  to see if they had any useful materials.

 

If I drew a blank there I would try local archives - Bucks archives are on twitter and have an email so I would shoot them an email to see if they have any useful holdings - https://twitter.com/bucksarchives - the twitter gives an email address. I'd also have a look through local newspapers for stories involving the station for names. The Bucks Free Press began in 1851, the British Library's newspaper archive can give you access.

 

If I had drawn a blank on all of those then only then I would sit down an plough through the online records to try to find the station staff.

 

Finally, a look at the PRO website for the 1861 High Wycombe census tells me that pages 51-53 are missing (59 people) so it might be that even after all this research your person will be one of these people.

 

 

[Jim Martin]

I'd agree with everything Morello says, but you should be aware that you can't just rock up to the National Archives at the moment. Apart from requiring a reader's ticket (which has always been the case, and which you can apply for online in 10 minutes, plus another 10 once you get there to show your forms of identification and get the card made), at present you need to pre-book your visit and also which records you want to see.

[Bernard Lamb]

55 minutes ago, Jim Martin said:

I'd agree with everything Morello says, but you should be aware that you can't just rock up to the National Archives at the moment. Apart from requiring a reader's ticket (which has always been the case, and which you can apply for online in 10 minutes, plus another 10 once you get there to show your forms of identification and get the card made), at present you need to pre-book your visit and also which records you want to see.

Which has always been a good idea even when their were no restrictions in place.

You can book a seat where you are near the document lockers or near the copying stands.

Some government committee records are big and heavy. and hard to lug around😃

You can also check if documents are available and ask on arrival when they cannot be ordered on line.

That is for actual documents. Records that are digitized can be viewed for free on computers in the public area and you do not need a readers ticket. Or didn't when I was a regular on pre covid days.

Do you now need a ticket to get into the building?

Census records are available using the same program that is available in most local public libraries, a corporate assess to Ancesrty or FMP, so a trip to the local library is as good as going to Kew for the 1861 census records.

Bernard

 

Just checked. Booking no longer essential.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Bernard Lamb

[Forward!]

To echo others, check out your local library service or County Records Office for free access to online census transcription services. They will often offer free access. I'd always advise reading a census alongside a contemporary trade directory and while keeping sight of a near-contemporary 25 inch OS map (also available free online for most of the UK at the National Library of Scotland website or at your local county record office). If your period of interest is the 1860s, the earliest 1st edition 25'' OS map will probably date to a good 10-20 years after your period of interest, but street layouts and district names rarely change so radically in the provincial towns of England during the later 19th century that a later map is not a useful tool for getting your bearings against the census returns and working out which address a census entry is most likely relating to.

 

However, if you really want an exhaustive list of all staff employed at a particular station at a given time, the census isn't a great way of reconstructing this information. Railway servants did not necessarily live in the towns where their stations were located- station masters and freight agents aside (who would have taken company-owned houses), many more junior officers and unskilled workers did often travel in from the rural hinterlands even at that early date. The return for my village in Oxfordshire includes a couple of families living there in the 186-s who were engine cleaners at Oxford, 15 miles down the branch line, for instance. And while it's an extreme example, Swindon works certainly drew a good proportion of it's unskilled labour force from villages many miles away right from the very beginning.  If you're interested more in the station at High Wycombe than the town itself I would be more tempted to start by interrogating railway company sources rather than using the census. There's not a great chance such records will survive, and people will be much more informed than me, but The NRM and STEAM archives would be good places to start just to get a sense of what sort of sources are available to you.

 

Will

[pb_devon]

There is a National Archives guide to researching railway workers: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/railway-workers/

 

That would seem to be a good place to start!

 

Plus their bookshop has a number of books on how to find records.

Edited July 24, 2022 by pb_devon

[David Bigcheeseplant]

Many thanks for all the info, I probably need to get to the National Archives I was the a long time ago when it was called the Public Record Office. I remember last time I had to be focused and not get dragged down some other rabbit hole that looked interesting.

[pb_devon]

Agreed!

Though it’s useful to have a plan B in case that file you pre-ordered titled “High Wycombe station staff 1861” turns out to be empty/something completely different/ lost!!

 

A back-up list of other, seemingly, less likely files may well turn out to be exactly what you want.

 

That’s often my experence.

 

Good luck!