Censuses have been taken every year since 1801 apart from 1941, although a National Registration was carried out in 1939.
The 1931 census was completely destroyed by fire in 1942. Information on this can be found on the1911Census.org site.
The censuses from 1801 to 1831 were only intended to be headcounts, although in a few places the enumerator did more than was required. We are very lucky that one of these exceptions was on the island of South Ronaldsay in Orkney. (See the 1821 Census section for further details.)
There are eight available censuses, which were taken on the following dates
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6th June 1841
30th March 1851
7th April 1861
2nd Apri 1871
3rd April 1881
5th April 1891
31st March 1901
2nd April 1911
Further information on the censuses can be found at the 1911Census.org site.