Statistics about Lelant
Copyright Maxwell Adams 2004-2019
Version November 2019
Also see the files for the 2001 and 2011 censuses for Lelant village on this website.
"Lelant parish" usually excludes St Ives and Towednack; it usually includes
the village of Lelant and the surrounding rural area, unless the village only is specified.
Medieval times
1377 poll tax
Number of Lelant people assessed for tax: 239
Approximate population of Lelant parish in 1377 as estimated by MacLean
from the poll tax figures: 359.
[MacLEAN John Poll tax accounts for Cornwall 1377 in the Journal of the
Royal Institution of Cornwall 1872, 39.] The poll tax figures are for Lelant and
Uny iuxta Lelant. I do not know what is meant by these two descriptions of locations.
Black Death
Lelant parish lost forty percent of its population due to the Black Death
[BLEWETT Richard R The Black Death in west and mid Cornwall 1349 in
Old Cornwall 1973, 524-533].
Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
For Lelant the various taxes and musters of the Tudors and the protestation oath
returns 1642, hearth taxes of the 1660s, and Compton church census of 1676
produce different total population estimates.
Census population figures for Lelant parish
Until 1934 the parish included a large rural area and was about 3500 acres.
YEARPEOPLEYEARPEOPLE
1801 1083 1871 2178
1811 1180 1881 1720
1821 1271 1891 1439
1831 1602 1901 1391
1841 2012 1911 1599
1851 2290 1921 1667
1861 2319 1931 1733
Up to the middle of the century about one third of the parish population lived in
Lelant village; by 1891 this had risen to 44 percent. The exodus had been
mainly from the rural areas.
In 1801 there were 199 inhabited houses and 215 families; in 1811 there were
209 inhabited houses and 233 families (Magna Britannia volume 3, published 1814).
1831 census
Details from a note written in the baptism register 1813-1846 of St Uny's church
(CRO P 120/1/3)
Inhabited houses 279
Families 311
Houses uninhabited 3
Families employed in:
Agriculture 88
Trade, manufacture, etc 42
All other families 181
Males 811
Females 791
Total in 1831 1602
Male upward of twenty years 413
Agriculture:
Occupiers in 1st class 24
Occupiers 2nd class 38
Labourers in agriculture 68
Manufacturers:
Retail trade and handicraft 44
Wholesale and capitalists, clergy, office
clerks,professional and other educated
men 4
Labourers, not agricultural 224
All other males of twenty years 3
Upwards of twenty years 8
Under twenty years, all female servants 47
Families at various censuses
Year No of families Family size
(population/number of families)
1841 372 5.4
1901 363 3.8
1911 410 3.9
1921 451 3.7
1931 489 3.5
Census 1965 for Lelant village (not the parish)
Lelant Womens Institute made an informal census in 1965. This was of the village.
The Lelant population surveyed totalled 547 of whom 86 percent were adults
and 14 percent school pupils and and college students. In 1965 adults were people over
twenty one. 8 percent of the total were born in Lelant. Three-fifths of workers worked
outside Lelant, two-fifths in Lelant. 14 percent of the total were retired people.
Households were acquiring the goods of modern living. Nearly a third of those surveyed
had a car and just over a half had a washing machine. However, nearly one-tenth
of households had only an outdoor lavatory.
Today no one in Lelant has only an outdoor lavatory and probably every household
has a washing machine. Central heating and double-glazing are now commonplace.
Population of Lelant village (not the parish)
1991-2000 959 (mean average)
The electoral register 3Y for Lelant, February 2000-February 2001, had
761 electors. This excluded people under eighteen.
1851 religion census, Lelant village
This was a return made by the churches themselves and of limited accuracy.
The figures for the three Christian places in Lelant village were:
St Uny's Church
Morning 100 attenders, 80 Sunday scholars
Afternoon 60 attenders, 60 Sunday scholars
No evening service
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
Morning 53 attenders, 80 Sunday scholars
Evening 200 attenders
No afternoon service
Primitive Methodist Chapel
Evening 140 attenders
No morning or afternoon services
This gives a total of 553 adult attendances and 220 Sunday School attendances.
The figure of 773 represents round about the entire village population. Even
if there were a surfeit of piety in Lelant, this is a highly unlikely proportion
and there must be many duplicate attendances and some generous counting.
Only one figure (53 adults at morning service at the Wesleyan chapel) looks
precisely expressed.
St Uny's Church
In the early years of the nineteenth century, when Anglicanism was still at
a low ebb, there were about a dozen communicants of St Uny's church.
The numbers increased as the 1851 religious census shows.
1902 Christmas day 65 communicants (St Uny's church magazine)
1909 Easter Day 102 communicants (Cornish Telegraph 15 April 1909)
There were ninety nine people on the St Uny church electoral roll at March
2003. Of these sixty five were Lelant residents.
Methodism
The numbers of worshippers exceeded the number of formal members but numbers
fluctuated very much, influenced in part by periodic revivals. Because membership
had shrunk to a handful, the Primitive Methodist chapel closed in 1909 and the
Wesleyan one at Trendreath in 1987.
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