Sydney D. Bailey

Parliament and the Prying Proclivities of the Registrar-General

In the month that the population of Britain will be counted for the eighteenth time, Sydney D Bailey argues that census taking, 'molesting and perplexing every single member of the kingdom... for the sake of political arithmetic' has always been a sensitive subject, reflecting the social concerns of the age.

Published March 31 1981

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Lords of the Northern Forest

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the central forces moulding the development of the vast tracts of land that today are Canada - but as Barry Gough explains here, the circumstances of its launch in 1670 also reveal much about the commercial forces, personalities and rivalries of Restoration England.