Diss Family History Group

In some of the Census returns there are numbers entered by the enumerators beside occupation entries. These relate to an entry in a Government list of occupations types. This list contains almost 250 categories and for general purposes is not particularly helpful. For this project a list of 13 categories has been arrived at which covers most of the occupations givin in the Census returns. Below are those categories with examples of the occupations they include.

• Agricultural - involved in farming activities, eg: cowman, tractor driver, dairy maid. This does not include farm owners or smallholders.
• Domestic - involved in supplying household services, eg: parlour maid, housekeeper. This does not incluse housewife.
• Education - those providing education, eg: teacher, music teacher, governess.
• Farmer - owner of a farming business, employer not employee, eg: farmer, smallholder, poultry farmer.
• Industry - people involved in manufacturing, working and management
• Medical - provision of medical diagnosis and care, eg: doctor, nurse.
• Private - those of independent means.
• Professional - eg: clergy, auctioneers, tax collectors.
• Publican - involved in the pub trade, including landlords and pub staff.
• Retail - selling to the public, either as shop owners or assistants, eg: grocer, grocer’s assistant.
• Retired - persons listed as an old age pensioner or retired.
• Services - employed to provide transport, safety and utilities, eg: signalman, policeman, roadman.
• Trade - people with a specific skill, eg: carpenters, builders, and their staff, eg: bricklayer’s labourer.

With no standard form of entering occupations onto Census Returns, it is extremely difficult to accurately count categories of occupation. Using the categories above has enabled a good estimation for analysis.

On many returns there are many missing occupations.

Many children have not been listed as scholars as they most likely should have been. This has made having Scholar as a category worthless. (See age profiles.)

Women listed as home duties and similar are not counted in Domestic.