Transcribed by H Roy Johnson
This web site contains a transcription of eight PRO microfiche. RG 12/3269 nos. 1 to 4 and RG 12/3270 nos. 1 to 4. There is a Name Index of over 15,500 people with links to the 3,413 households in which they reside. Included are the Institutions "The Convent of the Good Shepherd" and "The Manchester and Salford Reformatory for Boys".
Blackley, pronounced Blake-ly, is a small township or village situated about a couple of miles to the NNE of the centre of Manchester. By 1891 it had been engulfed by, and was part of Manchester. For the purpose of this census, Blackley is described as a sub district of Prestwich, and made up by the parishes of Blackley, Harpurhey, and Dob Lane End.
Please read the information below before commencing your first search.
There are three Search Indexes, a "Surname", an "Address", and a special "Forename" Index. These Index pages show lists of people, or adresses. They are for use in finding the census data which is written onto the 3,413 Residential pages. You will find on the left hand side of each person or address in the lists, a Residential Reference Number (underlined).Click on this number to link to the related Residential page.
The "Surname" Index is the main search facility. It is a full name index in alphabetic order of surname, each surname with forenames in alphabetic order. It is an index of over 15,500 people. It has been divided and subdivided to reduce down load times.Click on Surname
The "Address" Index is popular with some people and therefore included. The road, street, and house names are listed in alphabetic order. Unfortunately the numbers are somewhat awry, and I still have some work to do in order to sort them out. In the meantime it will need a little care on your part to locate a particular number.Click on Address
The "Forename" Index is an index of Married and Widowed Ladies that were living in Blackley in 1891. Its purpose is an attempt to remedy the problem of finding young ladies when they have changed their surname in marriage. If you have their "forename", "age", and "whereborn" from a previous census, then you can maybe find them. Even a "Mary Anne" having these qualifications, is rarely duplicated.Click here to go hunting. Forename
The book "The History and Annals of Blackley and Neighbourhood" by Philip Wentworth, published in 1892, contains a series of lithographic illustrations of this period. My cousin David Johnson has been granted permission by Manchester City Libraries to reproduce them. They may be viewed on his website http://www.fdjohnson.co.uk
After a Residential (household) page of interest has been found by one of the three Search Indexes, then adjacent households can be viewed. Links to these two pages are to be found below the address at the top of every page. Page numbers have been allocated in the order in which they appeared in the source fiche, so that, although not guaranteed, this method should result in a reasonable neighbourhood grouping.
This recent update of the "Neighbours" facility, should now, not only work on all browsers, but will also be more effective, and easier to use
Transcribed data, with neatly typed and well formatted output, can give a false impression of authenticity. Not only will the source data itself contain errors, but also it is certain that omissions and errors will have been made in the transcription. These are my concern. If users find any fault whatsoever in the data, then I would appreciate being informed about it. I would also welcome any comments about the web site. My email address is at the bottom of this page. I would ask you to include in the Subject field, the string Blackley91, also if relevant, the browser that you are using.
Although not strictly errors, changes have been made so as to help in the presentation and the navigation of the site. These changes are as follows.
The addresses of the houses on Rochdale Road, which are situated above its intersection with Moston Lane, have had the word (upper) added to them. This has been done to avoid duplication, because the numbering there had restarted again at No. 1. Also houses in some of the streets had no numbers. Where this occurred, an (a), (b), (c), etc. has been added.
There are two columns used in the census, one for male ages, the other for female ages. These have been changed to a common Age column, with a column showing the Sex, M(ale) or F(emale).
In lieu of an X. shown in one of the three columns relating to employment, a word, Employer, Employee, or Self Employed, has been added after the occupation given.
A "Notes" field has been added for each person. This is used occasionally to help with transcription problems, eg. for space when other fields have been over-written, comments on readability, & cross referencing, etc. Also as there were only about 25 people that were declared as infirm, these comments are also in this field.
Within the 1891 Blackley Census region, there are two Institutions housing several hundred staff and inmates. All the residents can of course, be found by the means of the Name Index facility. To link to the Institutions independently, click on the residential reference numbers below.
The Convent of the Good Shepherd. (3410)
The Manchester and Salford Reformatory (boys). (3409)
Census Data © British Crown copyright 1999. Published by permission of the Public Record Office, which is the custodian of the original source data. It is generally recommended that researchers make their own interpretation of data from source microfiche. To assist in doing this, the full details of the particular source used is given at the head of each data page. There may be difficulty in matching the Enumerator page numbers as they are faded and difficult to read on the fiche, also they may be duplicated as there are usually more than one set of Enumerator pages on each fiche.
To Phil Stringer for permission to be linked to his Lancashire pages of the well known Genealogy United Kingdom and Ireland web site www.GENUKI.org.uk/indexes/LANcontents.html
To my primos Enid and David Johnson for their support and enthusiasm for the project.
To my wife Marjorie for her support and patience in being continually called to the microfiche reader to help in reading the unreadable.
To John Howe, my friend and colleague at the Costa Blanca Computer Club www.dragonet.es/users/d991 for his help in the design of the database. Without his work and help on the output phase, the project would not have been completed, at least not in its present form.
Last update H Roy Johnson
August 2008