When Marx wrote 'Das Kapital' he did not have access to any detailed personal information, because the 1861 census data was still closed. More than a century later, however, we can see the reality of people's lives behind the statistics.
Marx wrote that "the rents [in Gamlingay] are very high; eight or nine persons packed in one sleeping apartment, in two cases six adults, each with one or two children in one small bedroom."
The image below is of a census page from the Gamligay census of 1861, showing three houses of agricultual labourers. You can see that 24 people are living in just three households. No fewer than eleven people are crammed into the Hughes household, ranging in age from Philip Hughes, aged 47, to his son William, aged three.
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Page from the 1861 census for Gamlingay, showing the Hughes family. (Document reference: RG9/1016/30A
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An extract from the 1886 Ordnance Survey map of Gamlingay. The agricultural labourers mentioned in the census extract above all lived in the row of cottages on the north side of Dutter End.
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