The London Lives website (www.londonlives.org) has a country-wide register of fire insurance policies during the period 1777--1786, which can be searched by name with results including details of occupation, location and policy date, such as Edmund STOOKE, linendraper, Fore Street, Exeter, 1st January 1781 WM BEAVIS, BUTCHER PROPRIETOR, PLYMPTON DEVON, 1st January 1780 It is probably best searched by surname but can also be searched by keyword for surname, occupation and location but that is not working too well at present and seems to be limited to 220 results per search so it is difficult to estimate the very large number of Devon policyholders. There were, for example, 112 policies in Axminster, 202 in Tiverton, 210 Barnstaple, and far more than 220 in Exeter and Plymouth, so there must be several thousand in the whole county. Note, as in the example above, that the location does not always include the county name. This might be the best available "census" of professionals and tradesmen at that time. Does anyone know of anything comparable? Martin Beavis