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RATE	Government Region	District/Unitary Authority	Modern (2024) Ward
Agriculture	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1971 - 2021 Dates 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021
Finance & Business Services	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	2001 - 2021 Dates 2001 2011 2021
Manufacturing	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1971 - 2021 Dates 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021
Mining	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1971 - 2021 Dates 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021
Public Services	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	1841 - 2021 Dates 1841 1861 1881 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991 2001 2011 2021	2001 - 2021 Dates 2001 2011 2021

Even the first census of 1801 divided the population into those 'chiefly employed in agriculture', those 'chiefly employed in trade, manufacturers or handicraft', and others. From 1841 onwards, information was gathered on each person's occupation and this formed the basis for very detailed tables. The 1841 occupational tables, used here, listed over 3,000 different occupational titles. This was partly because no advance plans had been made for dealing with the enormous range of job titles people gave, but by 1881 the more organised classification used in the county level tables covered 414 categories. When providing an overview of how economic activity has changed since 1841, we are blending together very diverse data, so we use a simple seven-way classification.

In general, early census reports applied just one classification to occupations, which led to three separate issues getting mixed up: social status, what the individual worker did ("occupation"), and what their employer's business was ("industry"). Modern censuses have separate tables for each of these, and from 1931 onwards we mainly present data on industry. NB our 1841 data are geographically crude, which results in some districts in the same county having identical figures.

These selections from historical census reports are on the theme of Industry.