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 two main sources: the periodic census of population which gives a national snapshot at a particular moment of time, and the regular flow of statistical information based on statutory registration of births, marriages and deaths.

Censuses of the people of Great Britain were taken regularly every ten years from 1801 to 1931. There was no census between 1931 and 1951, but a count of the population by age and sex was a by-product of the national registration of September 1939, which was carried out mainly for other purposes.

Censuses were taken on 8th April 1951 by the appropriate authorities in the United Kingdom, the islands of the British Seas and the Republic of Ireland. This was the first simultaneous population count covering all these areas since the censuses of 1911. The cooperation of the Republic of Ireland in arranging a simultaneous census was of particular value, owing to the considerable sea and land traffic and temporary and permanent movement of population between that country and the United Kingdom.

Preliminary reports of the censuses of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were obtained, in advance of the main statistical operations, direct from summaries supplied by the local census officers. They are, therefore, provisional, though no material correction to their figures is expected to be necessary. They relate only to the numbers of the population by sex for each country and for administrative areas within each country, except that in the Scottish report there is a table indicating by counties the number and percentage of the population returned as speaking Gaelic. To obtain advance information on the many other matters covered by the Census, an analysis has been made of a representative one per cent sample of the returns for Great Britain. The short demographic account of the United Kingdom given in this chapter is based mainly on census reports (including the 1951 Census One Per Cent Sample Tables) and on the regular returns of births, marriages and deaths, though some use has been made of other special investigations.

The enumerated population of the United Kingdom at the census taken on 8th April 1951 was, to the nearest thousand, 50,210,000, excluding 158,000 persons in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which are not strictly parts of the United Kingdom. This represented a population density of about 533 persons per square mile, which is one of the highest in the world and is still rising.

The population has increased by about 2½ million since mid-1939) by about 4 million since 1931, by about 6 million since 1921 and by about 43 million―or about sevenfold― since 1700. The main causes of this increase were a progressive reduction in death rates and a continuance of high birth rates into the beginning of the twentieth century.

Birth and Death Rates. During the nineteenth century the annual birth rate was usually around 3½ per cent. The annual death rate was just over 2 per cent. Both birth and death rates fell over the last 30 years of the century, but the natural increase of the population changed but little. It rose from 1-2 per cent in 1851 to 1-4 per cent in 1881, and fell to I-I per cent in 1901.

These fertile years, with their comparatively high death rates in all age groups, produced