Moreover, at a time when the age of consent was 21 householders below this age often had an incentive to falsify their ages in order to rent accommodation and enter into legally-binding contracts. Similarly the ages of child workers appear on occasion to have been falsified to circumvent the various factory ages. Charles Shaw, for example, born in Tunstall in 1832 is shown as a eleven-year potter in the 1841 census. He concluded that age data is fairly accurate and those errors he found tended to be small. For example, in the Hanley CEBs, for 1881, the writer classified a 'builder' as a manual worker only to find on examination of the rate book that he owned several houses having presumably employed other people to build them for him.
More fundamental problems exist in using occupational data for women and children.
Again, aggregate census statistics published in the 1841 and 1851 Census Volumes for those areas covered by the reports of the various Children's Employment Commissions suggest that the occupations of children were often under-enumerated. The least accurate data collected was the information sought on disabilities. The question was poorly worded and the replies given are often of little use. Where the CEBs can be Viewed. County Record Offices.