Oh! And by the way, I would be curious to know how 19th statisticians calculated "literacy rates" and what did they mean by "literacy"? No doubt a good many early Victorian labourers could write their names (although I still have to find more than the odd one or two in my motley crew) but whether they could do much more than that, such as spell many of the wonderful words in our huge vocabulary let alone place names, which have their own glorious peculiarities, is another matter altogether ! Jim Halsey On Apr 3, 2005 7:07 PM, John Brown <john.dhb@btopenworld.com> wrote: > "Peter B Park" <pbp@archive-research.freeserve.co.uk> wrote : > > > From: "Tim Powys-Lybbe" <tim@powys.org> > > > <snip> > >> > >> I think that a high proportion of the population was illiterate then, or > >> certainly in 1861 and this is why the schedule was signed by a 13 year > >> old as he was the only one who could write. So theonly way the forms > >> could get filled in was by the enumerator asking questions of the head > >> to the household. What's the guess as to the then illiteracy rate among > >> such heads? 40%? > > > > Modern research shows that the levels of literacy were higher that we > > think - evidenced by thousands of letters written by paupers to overseers > > claiming non-resident relief from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Even > > allowing for Tim's only 40% for heads of household, it means that there is > > a > > very good chance that the head of a neighbouring household was not > > illiterate. Add to this the number of children and wives that could write, > > I > > would suggest that most forms were filled in before the enumerator > > collected > > them. > > It sounds good but what is the actual evidence ? You say 'thousands of > letters' but how can we be sure these were actually written by the paupers, > and not by someone else on their behalf ? > > Tim's comment about the prercentage of literate heads of household is a > general figure - it doesn't take account of the differential incidence of > literacy in different areas. A poor area would inevitably have a generally > higher level of illiteracy, the neighbours just as dodgy as him indoors. > > Does anyone have any concrete evidence about this issue, or are we just > discusiing opinions and perceptions ? Did none of the enumerators write down > their experiences ? > > John B > Leic., Eng > >