Read more about the 1901 Census Returns for Church Street

The 1901 Census Returns for Church Street, Coleraine

From the evidence of the valuation records, I would estimate that there were at least 34 shops/houses in Church Street in 1901. Virtually all of the shops at that time would have included some sort of dwelling accommodation. The census enumerator, Hamilton Hemingway, listed 22 buildings in the street on the 31st March 1901. I can identify, another 14 families who had shops in the street but lived in other parts of the town or in the suburbs. Hemingway only listed four uninhabited shops which suggests a considerable shortfall. Either he forgot to record these uninhabited shops or some of the original sheets are missing from the microfilm copy that I used. I suspect the former is the case.

The house numbers assigned by Hemingway to each building reflected his journey along the street which, to say the least, was somewhat haphazard. Click here for a copy of Form B1: House and Building Return for Church Street.

He appears to have started with two houses on the north side of the street [Nos. 27 & 26 on the 1859 Griffith's Valuation Map].
Then he crossed over to the south side of the street, enumerated house No. 3 in the Census Returns [Griffith's No.12], then house No. 4 [Griffith's No. 9] which lay on the New Row side of No. 3.
He then turned back to enumerate house No. 5 [Griffith's No.14] on the Society Street side of No. 3, and from there continued towards Society Street, apparently missing a number of shops on the way.
He then crossed over again, enumerated the remaining inhabited houses on the north side of the street, but missing most of the shops between Park Street and the Diamond which were not occupied by families.
Finally he crossed over to the south side of the street and enumerated the buildings from New Row towards the Diamond.

Perhaps the fact that about a third of the shops in the street were not lived in by families accounts for his erratic journey and partially explains his omissions. Another fact that would help to explain the discrepancy between the Census Returns and the Valuation Records is that the buildings at the corner of Church Street and adjacent streets such as the Diamond, New Row and Society Street may have been included in Church Street in one source and in a different street in the other source. I investigated this possibility but came away still with the view that he had missed some shops.