Race and Ethnicity Classification in British Colonial and Early Commonwealth Censuses

Abstract

The British government instituted the taking of regular population censuses in its colonies over the course of the nineteenth century. The practice was continued after political independence in the twentieth century. The officials tasked with this project sought to provide a comprehensive view of the numbers and characteristics and nature of the populations of the territories concerned. Little guidance was offered by the imperial government on the implementation of the census, and it was left to each local administration to organize the form it would take, including the questions to be asked. The question of race was prominent among the personal attributes listed on questionnaires, although it was not universally included as a census topic. Furthermore, as the question lacked any scientific basis, each administration devised its own classification scheme, reflecting the history and development of the territory concerned. Once devised, questions and classifications tended to be retained from one census to the next for comparative purposes. As a result, schemes devised in the nineteenth century influence those of the twenty-first century, as through familiarity, classification schemes and their terminologies tend to be retained over long periods of time.