The National Census for 1851 followed the same format as per the very first census of 1841. The head of the household completed the census for his/her property giving his marital status, age, occupation and place of birth. He then listed all the other occupants and detailed their relationship to him, their marital status, age, occupation and place of birth.  

All this information was transcribed for each district onto a standard form by a clerk in his best copperplate handwriting using beautifully flourished capitals. Unfortunately that gave me  considerable problems as, in many instances, I was unable to decipher some of his letters and had to admit defeat and use ??. Also, for some reason best known to himself, he resorted to putting thick black lines through key items of data, especially ages, and once again I had to use ??.  My apologies for the lost information but I really did try.

The Township of Netherthong encompassed many outlying areas and I have included these in the census details. Examples are Greave, Wolfstones, Crodingley, Thongs bridge, Fearnought and Sands.