Kresen KernowAt the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086, the entire population of Cornwall was reckoned to be around 25,000.

In the middle of the 14th century, the population of Cornwall suffered badly from the effects of The Black Death (Bubonic Plague), which had reduced it by nearly two-thirds. In 1377 a poll-tax census was taken, when it was found that, exclusive of children under 14 and mendicants, the entire population of Cornwall did not exceed 34,960 persons (Polsue).


By 1570 the population has been calculated at just less than 70,000 which had grown to almost 108,000 by the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

The recorded population figures of Cornwall in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries are:

Source: Office of National Statistics.

• The book: E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield, (Eds.). The Population History of England, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989, is the standard text on the historical demography of England, based on many years of work by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. A book which draws very usefully on this research, in order to study family and community in England after the Middle Ages and before the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution, is: P. Laslett. The World We Have Lost: Further explored, London, Routledge, 1983, 353 p.
• The Vision of Brtain site has a number of population graphs and charts. Note the site has undergone changes, you may need to hunt!

• Statistics on the population of the British Isles (archived copy).
• Histpop, the online historical population reports website, in its census section provides access to all the published population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 - 1937. The site has a huge amount of statistical information both at a county level and at a parish or district level. There is no personal information on the site.
• Comparative Account of the Population of Great Britain in the years 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831. House of Commons (19 October 1831) 432pp. (Provides parish-level population counts, for England, Wales and Scotland.)