1881 census occupation

Scholar surnames in the 1881 census

This page lists surnames most often recorded for children listed as Scholar in 1881. Scholar was the census term for a child in education, not a job in the modern sense.

Occupation summary

27,800 surnames are listed with this occupation, covering 4,121,311 people in the 1881 records.

The leading surname here is Smith, with 72,516 people recorded as Scholars.

Surnames most linked with Scholar

These figures mostly count children, so they should not be read as a list of adult trades. A high Scholar count usually points to surnames found in larger families or places with many school-age children in the 1881 census.

What Scholar means in the 1881 census

In the 1881 census, Scholar usually means a child who was attending school or receiving education. It was commonly written in the occupation column because the census still needed a way to describe children who were too young for paid work.

That makes this page different from pages for jobs such as Coal Miner, Dressmaker or Blacksmith. The table below is not showing families who worked as scholars. It is showing surnames most often attached to children recorded with that census description.

For genealogy work, Scholar is still useful. A large number can point to surnames with many school-age children in 1881, and it can help separate household structure from adult employment. To understand what adults in those families did for work, the other occupation pages are usually more informative.

#	Surname	People	1881 total
1	Smith	72,516	422,249
2	Jones	66,534	338,678
3	Williams	41,854	214,615
4	Taylor	34,140	191,142
5	Davies	30,930	152,295
6	Brown	30,577	197,359
7	Evans	26,075	130,734
8	Thomas	24,892	123,339
9	Roberts	21,527	112,276
10	Wilson	19,635	137,750
11	Johnson	19,623	100,458
12	Robinson	18,498	95,300
13	Wright	17,338	95,951
14	Wood	17,165	95,380
15	White	17,098	96,053
16	Thompson	16,769	89,587
17	Hall	16,494	88,053
18	Walker	16,445	100,304
19	Green	16,366	84,164
20	Edwards	16,057	83,319
21	Turner	15,417	83,267
22	Jackson	15,331	83,594
23	Clark	13,748	90,143
24	Cooper	13,673	72,708
25	Baker	13,207	65,282
26	Morris	12,546	66,607
27	Martin	12,433	73,281
28	Davis	12,347	65,757
29	Ward	12,267	65,299
30	Clarke	11,926	60,196
31	King	11,792	65,115
32	Moore	11,455	58,817
33	Allen	11,233	56,290
34	Parker	10,845	56,883
35	Cook	10,577	59,467
36	Price	10,399	52,361
37	Phillips	10,381	53,458
38	Watson	10,268	69,539
39	Griffiths	10,008	48,955
40	Carter	9,800	50,099
41	Bennett	9,657	49,110
42	Shaw	9,559	55,020
43	Scott	9,462	76,018
44	Richardson	9,444	50,857
45	Richards	9,112	45,120
46	Cox	9,109	44,382
47	Bailey	9,070	44,948
48	Young	9,041	64,312
49	Wilkinson	8,845	45,653
50	Bell	8,715	56,099
51	Mitchell	8,329	60,795
52	Ellis	8,316	43,381
53	Marshall	8,205	50,203
54	Chapman	8,046	42,456
55	Collins	8,031	42,829
56	Webb	8,016	40,508
57	Adams	7,905	43,950
58	Simpson	7,649	52,391
59	Foster	7,610	40,056
60	Rogers	7,563	38,745
61	Barker	7,521	39,196
62	Mason	7,517	40,247
63	Mills	7,429	38,788
64	Knight	7,291	36,756
65	Miller	7,289	53,567
66	Powell	7,207	37,321
67	Barnes	7,093	36,002
68	Jenkins	7,012	35,237
69	Palmer	6,847	35,153
70	Owen	6,763	35,558
71	Pearson	6,643	34,754
72	Fletcher	6,459	34,136
73	Fisher	6,359	34,989
74	Dixon	6,339	32,795
75	Stevens	6,043	31,223
76	Dawson	5,806	32,910
77	Butler	5,761	29,165
78	Brooks	5,747	29,205
79	Booth	5,690	29,559
80	Atkinson	5,609	29,154
81	Andrews	5,592	28,636
82	Gray	5,584	42,727
83	Rees	5,584	26,024
84	Day	5,554	27,843
85	Pearce	5,543	27,443
86	Ford	5,464	29,131
87	Payne	5,370	26,886
88	Russell	5,366	36,592
89	Fox	5,350	26,486
90	West	5,345	28,778
91	Spencer	5,299	27,278
92	Cole	5,278	27,185
93	Matthews	5,253	26,049
94	Saunders	5,223	27,328
95	Ball	5,128	24,730
96	Gibson	5,100	36,370
97	Watts	4,981	25,021
98	Burton	4,959	25,491
99	Elliott	4,922	25,315
100	Anderson	4,842	59,265