In 1800, Thomas Malthus, Britain’s first professor of political economy, published an essay suggesting that the nation’s growing population would soon outstrip food supply. His views were disputed, but John Rickman, a statistician and government official, was pressed to agree that Britain needed to accurately assess population trends and catch up with other parts of Europe and the USA by conducting a 10-yearly population census. The first was conducted in 1801.
Initially, these surveys were little more than local population headcounts, but they have continued and developed ever since and the 2011 census covers a much wider range of issues. Personal census information is not published until 100 years after it is collected — but we should know the general results of the latest census in 2012.
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