Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.

These data were originally published in the reports of the Registrar-General for Scotland. They were computerised by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and its collaborators. They form part of the Great Britain Historical Database, which contains a wide range of geographically-located statistics, selected to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain, generally at sub-county scales.

The data comprise complete transcriptions of a small number of tables selected from the Annual Reports, and Decennial Supplements, of the Registrar General:

(1) Annual counts of births, marriages and deaths in 1861, 1881 and 1911.

(2) Annual counts of births (and stillbirths), deaths, and deaths by 5- or 10-year age bands in 1921, 1930, 1931, 1941, 1950, 1951, 1961 and 1971.

(3) Deaths by gender and 5-year age bands in 1881.

(4) Cause of death by gender and 5-year age bands for the decades 1881-90 and 1891-1900.

The data are always by county and sometimes also by burgh and district.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

All data are counts of births, marriages or deaths except for population totals taken from the census.