Definition
This variable lists the institutional location of an individual. This variable was created by programming.
The transcripts of the British 1851 census are from the 2% sample, transcribed by a team under Professor Michael Anderson at Edinburgh. The inclusion of institutional population in the 1851 sample was created by Professor Michael Anderson. According to Anderson " Institutions were sampled by treating all the institutional populations as if they were one continuous list and then systematically selecting twenty individuals from each successive one thousand names. Where institutions included families, special arrangements were made; in these cases the sample was drawn so as to include all members of families the first member of which appeared before the twentieth individual, and to exclude members of families where only the later members appeared within a block of twenty names. Proceeding in these ways, 980 separate 'data clusters' were identified, either directly from the published Reports or, in most cases, by tediously counting the enumeration books and selecting the fiftieth in each stratum sequence".
However, some inconsistencies remain and programming altered some of the values in the institutional population so that the1881 and 1851 census are comparable. The four variables that help define the institutional location of an individual are, rectype (record type) allocated by the data parsing program; second the address (GB51A007) given in the enumerators' books; third the relationship (GB51A411) between the number of related kin within the household and fourth the size of the household.
The combination of these variables can be summarized as follows:
If the household is not already defined as an institution, has more than 20 residents of whom 10 or more have a relationship to head of household which are 'miscellaneous' (i.e., not kin, not inmates, not boarders, not lodgers, not servants and not visitors) then the household shall be defined as an institution.
If the household is not already defined as an institution and there are more than 20 residents, more than two‐thirds are institutional inmates, household inmates, family inmates or servants, then the household shall be defined as an institution.
If the household is not already defined as an institution and there is a valid 'institution‐word' in the address, there are more than six residents and the ratio of kin to non‐kin is greater than 0.8 then the household is redefined as an institution.
If the household is defined as an institution, there is no valid institution word in the address, there are less than 24 residents and the ratio of kin to non‐kin is less than 0.8 then the household is redefined as an ordinary household.
If the household is defined as an ordinary household and there is a valid 'vesselword' then the household is redefined as a vessel.
For each of these alterations a different new record type is created which serves the purpose of a check variable. For example, the first three of these types would result in the variable instit being set to 4, which indicates that it would have been 1 had not the program altered it.
