Bill Wood wrote: > ... > Whats does Sanitary / Ecclesiastical mean when applied to census data ? > > Sanitary : Different districts in a town split by drainage and nightcart and > planning requirements ? > > Ecclesiastical : Different districts in a town split by proximity to various > churches ? Without knowing the full context in which these words occurred it is hard to be certain, but I suspect this question is linked with your earlier questions about the categories parish/township/village etc. as found on Census returns. If so, then a little light Administrative History might be helpful. The first (and most important) fact to hang on to is the importance, over hundreds of years, of the Parish as the primary administrative division in Scotland. The system of parishes was essentially set up by the Kirk of Scotland at the Reformation (although it also leant on pre-Reformation organisation). This divided up the entire territory of Scotland into areas of a size to be served by a single church (although in sparsely-populated parts of the country, these areas could be quite large. The parishes were grouped, for church/ecclesiastical/'quoad sacra' purposes into Presbyteries, usually containing from 6 to 12 parishes, and the Presbyteries were further grouped into Synoads. You note that I have not said anything about Counties. This is because the parishes were not (as was the case in England) grouped according to County, and in fact had nothing whatever to do with them. The Counties (which did not appear on maps with anything like their "traditional" names and boundaries much before 1750) belonged to an entirely different organisational setup, depending not on the Kirk, but on the Crown, and were significant only for the administration of Justice and the registration of land ownership, and had little impact on the lives of the great majority of people. The parish, on the other hand, loomed large in most people's lives, not only for reasons of Religion, but also as the source of education and poor relief - and also as the collector of taxes. This situation, with parishes and counties existing essentially in parallel, but quite independently of each other, essentially persisted until the middle of the 19th century. In the later 18th century, there is some attempt to assign parishes to counties, but as the boundaries of the one frequently failed to line up with the boundaries of the other, this was a somewhat muddled business. But betwen 1845 and 1872, three of the Kirk's traditional areas of responsibility (Poor Relief, Registration of life events, and Education) were taken away and new structures began to be set up to administer them. The first was Poor Relief, and to run the new system, there were, for the first time, "Parochial Boards" set up in each parish, which were quite independent of the Kirk and who supervised the work of a new official, the Inspector of the Poor (although Elders and Session Clerks were often employmed in this position). In 1855, another new (independent) local official was created, namely the Registrar, who took over responsibility for recording Births, Deaths and Marriages. And in 1872, the majority of schools came under the control of local School Boards. But while the number of "Boards" and officers multiplied, one thing remained largely unchanged, namely the geographical area over which each body or official presided. The boundaries of the original Ecclesiastical parish were, in the great majority of cases, adopted by the Poor Law Board or Registration District or whatever which took over some aspect or another of administration. Some new Parishes/Registration Districts were set up to accommodate changes in population, but these are surprisingly few. From the foregoing, it will be clear that administration of the various services which, in modern times, generally come under a Town or County Council, was, in 19th century Scotland, dispersed among multiple parallel or overlapping authorities. In other words, it was a muddle. And the muddle was not tidied up until around 1890, with important Acts of Parliament being passed in 1889, and coming into effect at various dates up to May 1891. It is against this background that we have to look at the bewildering series of categories which appear at the start of each Enumeration Book in the Census. In 1841, there were slots to record: County, District, Parish, City, Burgh Royal and Parliamentary, Burgh Parliamentary (not being Royal), Burgh and Parish, Island - but in most cases you will find that most of the slots are left blank, because they are irrelevant. And somewhere among them will almost certainly be the name of the original Parish, which for clarity, will probably have the Registrar General's code number attached or associated somewhere in the introduction to the document. Gavin Bell