1881 and all that!

1881 was a special year in that it was a year when the National Census was taken.

Who was living in Totley in 1881?

Surprisingly there were 671 names on the list. The surname that was most common was "Green" and there were 65 of them. The nearest rival was "Ward" with 46 and then" Elliott" with 24 entries. Down the list was "Fisher" with 15, "Coates" with 12, "Pinder" with 12, "Payne" with 11 and "Wolstenholme", "Wragg" and "Wright" with 10 each. No other family got into double figures.

The census was not always specific about where people lived. Some entries just say "Totley" but others mention places like "Monny Brook", "Totley Bents", "Totley Vale", "Green Oak", "Crass Scythes" and "Crown Inn". For a lot of families the address given was "Roling Mill". It is noteworthy that the heads of these latter families frequently came from outside Totley. Whether they came with specialist skills or just to find work is for someone else to say.

There were 52 names at the "Orphanage". The eldest person there and presumably in charge was Susannah Hoyland Perhaps she was one of the family of "Hoyland" who lived at Brook Hall? Of course, a census return is only as accurate as the people who provided the information and quite possibly some of them could not read or write Nevertheless, for me at least, it provided an interesting insight of Totley.