Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

3. compton census, 1676: the diocese of norwich

The Compton Census was an ecclesiatical census taken in 1676 and named after Henry Compton, the Bishop of London. The incumbents of the parish were recorded as either Conformists, Papists, or Nonconformists although in many cases the number of Conformists may have been the total population of the parish over 16.

Being an ecclesiatical census this census collected by ecclesiastical parishes which aggregated into arch-deaconeries and diocese rather than the civil hundreds and ancient counties. The data for this were provided by Joanna MacKinder and Prof. Margaret Spufford of the Roehampton Institute, London.

This work is not as advanced as other maps shown here and many of the blank areas are merely due to unresolved spelling differences. The idea behind this map however was to see if any evidence existed for clustering of non-conformists and the map suggests that there might be, particularly in the north-east and south-east of the county.