Evva Courtney Benson and Dr. Cynthia L. Doxey, Church History and Doctrine
Purpose
The year 1851 was a unique one in England. Not only was it the year of the decennial census, but it was the only time a national census on religion was taken. 1851 was also a year when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had many branches throughout England. The Church had been in England since 1837, but the large decline in membership due to emigration had not yet occurred.
Much has been written regarding the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census of England and Wales. Just as much has been written regarding the early members and branches of the LDS Church. Nothing, to my knowledge, had been written which makes use of the two together. The 1851 Ecclesiastical Census is the only source outside of the Latter-day Saint church which documents on the national level locations and attendances of LDS branches in this early period. As such, it can be used as a tool of comparison to verify locations of early branches. In addition, the other information that the Ecclesiastical Census asked for gives insights into the early branches not available from other sources.
The purpose of this study was to use the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census in this way. I would like to briefly outline how it evolved. I began by comparing the census locations for LDS congregations to the places (branches) for which there are LDS membership records which date to 1851. I organized this information into a table of comparison for the forty counties of England. As I did this, I estimated that there were at least 35 congregations which were recorded in the census for which there are no corresponding membership records. I wondered what had happened to these records. The county of Norfolk provided the most dramatic example of this. In the census, Norfolk has thirteen LDS congregations. There are records of only six branches from that time period. Were all these records missing? Had they been lost? Or was it that these early Latter-day Saints met in outlying locations but kept records in a central branch?
In addition to the questions suggested by these discrepancies, other questions arose in my mind. What was the membership in a rural county such as Norfolk like? Did entire families join the church? What ages were the converts? What were their occupations? The majority of the well-known work on the early Saints in Britain has focused on their industrial origins. Much of the information has been drawn from the sample of the Saints who emigrated, and not a sample of all the Saints in Great Britain. To answer my questions, I decided to use the population enumeration of the 1851 census (which happens to be on CD-ROM for the county of Norfolk). Armed with copies of the six existing branch records, I found all of the members that I could in the population enumeration. I was able to find over 50 per cent.
No large scale work, to my knowledge, has been undertaken which attempts to sample the stationary LDS population from census records in England at this time. The gleanings from this may challenge typical stereotypes, but will do so from new sources and methods. In addition, this may provide a pattern for continued work in attempting to document the gaps in extant membership records. It has been exciting to discover such a wonderful and largely untapped source.
Conclusions
As a point of interest, based on the membership records and the census locations, the Saints in Norfolk probably traveled on average two miles to go to church. If they did this more than once a Sunday, and then again during the week as the East Dereham history suggests, that represents quite a commitment.
From this sample, we have a general picture of the membership in Norfolk. This picture stands in contrast to previous studies that have been done in its detail and findings. Over half the members were not the only ones in their families. They were of all ages, and while there were many who were agricultural laborers, many other walks of life were represented. They went to church in houses and buildings used for other purposes during the week, and they tended to meet where was most convenient for them. Members influenced their family and friends, and so members were found in clusters. The few columns of data provided in the census have yielded a wealth of information. One can almost feel oneself amongst the Saints of Norfolk.
Using Norfolk as a case study, some hypothesis regarding the non-correlation between the census locations and LDS branch membership records have been made. In some cases, a branch would meet in two different locations, but still kept records together. In other cases their records, assuming the records were kept in the first place, have been lost to our eyes. This study more thoroughly shows that members often splintered into a new branch in order to avoid traveling long distances. Last but not least, our picture of early church membership in England, especially in a rural setting, has been brought into clearer focus. These early Saints in Norfolk have become as real as the people that I go to church with.
This study of the 1851 Census and LDS branch records has been fruitful, and has just previewed a small part of the potential of similar studies. The national table that has been constructed hopefully can be a springboard to know where work needs to be done. It is also my hope that people who have been unable to find their ancestors in LDS records may see that perhaps records for that area are indeed missing.