John Rickman: OG and Creator of the UK Census

By Vincent Tickner OG 1966

Portrait of John Rickman by Samuel Lane c.1831

Few people may know, however, that John Rickman (1771-1840), who was largely responsible for the first censuses from 1801 to 1841, had been a pupil at the RGS.

John Rickman was born in Newburn, Northumberland on August 22, 1771, the son of a clergyman, the Rev Thomas Rickman, who was descended from an old Hampshire family. John was educated at the RGS from 1779 at least, and went up to Magdalen College, Oxford in 1788 but was thereafter at Lincoln College, from which he graduated with a BA in 1792. After that, for some time, he ran the Commercial, Agricultural and Manufacturer’s Magazine.

The study of the population was one of the major concerns of political economy at the time. In 1796 Rickman wrote a paper indicating that it would be administratively easier and more costeffective to take a census of the population than the enumeration methods previously used. George Rose, MP for Christchurch, Hampshire showed this to Charles Abbot MP for Helston

in Cornwall, and Abbot hired Rickman as his Secretary. In 1800 Abbot established a committee to inquire into the condition of national records and employed Rickman to prepare the Census Act for the first national census, which gained Royal Assent on December 31, 1800.

Rickman settled in London in February 1802 as Abbot’s Secretary, Abbot having become Speaker of the House of Commons. In July 1814 he was appointed Second Clerk Assistant at the table of the House of Commons and in 1820 Clerk Assistant, which position he held till his death in 1840. Rickman gained recognition both at home and abroad, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815, an honorary member of the French Society of Statistics in 1833 and an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1835 (he had had strong contacts with Thomas Telford).

John Rickman organised the administration of all the ten year censuses from 1801 to 1831. In 1836 he sent circulars to local clergy to gather information from parish registers back to 1570. He abstracted the results and hoped to publish these to demonstrate population trends from the sixteenth century onwards; his analysis eventually formed part of the 1841 census. He was in charge of preparations for the 1841 census until about June 11, 1840, when he fell ill from a throat infection, from which he subsequently appears to have died in August 1840.

He was a respected intellectual in 19th century London and Charles Lamb, the essayist, wrote to Thomas Manning on November 3, 1800, saying of John Rickman:

“This Rickman lived in our Buildings, immediately opposite our house; the finest fellow to drop in a’nights, about nine or ten o’clock – cold bread and cheese time – just in the wishing time of the night, when you wish for somebody to come in, without a distinct idea of the probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a most pleasant hand; a fine rattling fellow, has gone through life laughing at solemn apes – himself hugely literate, oppressively full of information in all stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to Xenophon and Plato – can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, conjecture with George Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with anybody; great farmer, somewhat concerned in an agricultural magazine; reads no poetry; relishes George Dyer; thoroughly penetrates into the ridiculous wherever found; understands the first time (a great desideratum in common minds) – you never need speak twice to him; does not want explanations; translations, limitations; as Professor Godwin does when you make an assertion; is up to anything; down to anything; whatever sapit hominum! A perfect man!”

The census of 2021, and the publishing of the 1921 Census in January 2022, is an appropriate time to acknowledge John Rickman’s contribution to our national and School history.

The 1801 Census details