Hi Glynn I would be interested to know how you come to the conclusion that you do regarding the literacy of the population As there are few if any records which might contain their writing, its very hard to say for sure, certainly the schedules are long gone One of the gauges used for literacy, is the ability to sign their names on a marriage register, although flawed, even that shows a healthy percentage signed their names by 1861 and is likely to understate literacy levels rather than over state it People were in awe of authority, far more so than today, when the minister said make your mark there, they did, regardless of their ability to write their names, so if you gauge it on those who did sign, its likely there were more with the ability rather than less Whilst there is absolutely no doubt that literacy was higher in the towns than in the Countryside, it doesn't alter the fact that there would be someone around who could fill in the schedule or help to do so in the majority of cases The literacy levels are stated by several different sources as being approx 75% for men and 65% for women by 1861 So take a worse case scenario that in the Countryside it was half that That means that more than three out of every ten people could write Its very hard to gauge distribution of literate people in every household but you can see that in most households there would be someone who could fill in the schedule, and for those that had no one, some will have had friends, neighbours or relatives who could do it for them I just did a very small test sample, looking at Brooke marriage, I looked at four pages in the register in 1837, so 24 marriages 29 out of 48 people signed their names in the register Thats approx 60% and thats is 1837, 24 years before the 1861 census Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 22/07/2014 13:05, Glynn Burrows via wrote: > Hi All > > In my researches into life in Norfolk in the 1860's, the majority of > the general population of this beautiful County could not read and > write to a standard sufficient to enable them to fill in the census > forms. Nearly all of the adults filling in the forms for the 1861 > census would have been born before 1840, with many of them having > been born during the late Georgian period. The education of the > poorer classes in rural England was just about non-existant before > the 1850's, apart from the odd Dame School and anything picked up in > the Workhouse. > > > Glynn