Scholar surnames 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.