A married woman who was head of household rather than her husband in the 1921 census

[Another2Cats]

I've been tracing someone that was proving to be rather complicated to find but then suddenly got distracted by some writing that I noticed on one census form that I was looking at.

I noticed that it had the wife as the Head and the husband as "husband".

At the bottom of the page is some text from the Census Enumerator explaining why the census says what it does .

I think it says a lot to the attitudes of the times and I can just imagine exactly how that conversation went.

"In this case the woman insists upon being described as "Head". All the household goods were her own property and her name was on the rent book. Her husband had left her upon one occasion & she had taken him back upon trial"

This is the first time I've seen anything like this. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

Good for her! Very interesting bit of history.

How interesting!

Good for her indeed!

Haha! Good on her. And good for the census enumerator for giving you a useful bit of background!
I've also seen on the 1911 census for Ireland that one of my forebears refused to provide the religion of himself and his family, even though it was 'Methodist' in 1901 and his dad was a Methodist minister. Wonder if he'd had a crisis of faith in the intervening ten years...

Love that! Never come across anything like that in my 25 years of research.

Wow! That’s amazing. Never seen anything like that (though I haven’t looked much at 1921 yet).

I wonder how "the trial" went and if they stayed together or whether she chucked him back out 🤔

Wow! I bet she was a force to be reckoned with… What a fascinating little glimpse into that family’s life!

Is it easy/possible to find the same family again in a later census? And see what happened?

Love this

We will have to wait until 2031 to find out unfortunately 🙁
(Edit : I am now imagining this thread popping up in 2031 as a zombie thread 😂😂😂)

Lots of people went rogue on the 1921 census.

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/discoveries/10-amazing-finds-1921

Thank you for sharing this, OP, it is absolutely fascinating. What a wonderful woman.

Unfortunately not, the 1931 census was destroyed in the Blitz, apparently.

The 1931 census returns were destroyed in a fire, but they may appear on the 1939 register.

Oh hang on. Just looked it up - not the Blitz. Someone having a fag. 🙄
But if you're Scottish, you're in luck - it's still intact! 1931 United Kingdom census - Wikipedia

Amazing! Good for her.

Was this census sometimes self-completed? Because the Tolkein entry in the link above looks very like his writing.

Yes, I wonder! Is it possible to trace this?

Edit, sorry, just read the rest of the thread.

Oh no 🙁
Edit: just saw your follow up.
Right in 2031 we all meet back here 😂
Edit 2 Oh no - it's just the Scottish (and I assume NI) part that still exists.

What a legend! 💪

NI didn't have a '31 census @Needmorelego. We had one in 1926 and the govt pulped it.

As an island group, we don't have much luck with the census, do we?!

Wow. Good for her!

Thank you so much for sharing that, @Another2Cats .

Was this census sometimes self-completed? Because the Tolkein entry in the link above looks very like his writing.

The 1911 and 1921 census returns are completed by the householder. The earlier ones, the returns were copied into volumes and the original household schedules estroyed.

I've just been looking at some 1921 returns for a particular household. The schedule was filled in by a young woman who was an elementary school teacher, using her best elementary school teacher's handwriting.

You know Tolkein's handwriting?

@TressiliansStone Yes, there was quite a lot of it in the maps in the books.