Ethnicity, Language & Identity

Most of the questions on these subjects were not found until later censuses. The 1971 census did ask about place of birth, which is not quite the same thing, as that doesn't necessarily relate to ethnicity.  3,565 (94.5%).of Hartley's population was born in the countries of the UK in 1971, 38 (1.0%) in Ireland, 34 (0.9%) in the rest of Europe, 8 (0.2%) in the "Old" Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) and 30 (0.8%) in "New" Commonwealth.

Housing

1971 marked the high point of owner occupation in Hartley.  1,023 (87%) of households were owner occupied then, this had fallen to 75% in 1981.  The reason for this will be the construction of social housing at Wellfield and Bazes Shaw between the two censuses.  Council housing made up 106 (9%) and private rented 47 (4%) of households in 1971.

Whereas Hartley now has a very settled population, it might be expected not to be the case when the village was rapidly growing, and so it turned out to be.  Based on a 10% sample, 240 (6.4%) had moved here within the previous year, no less than 1,590 (42.2%) had moved to or within Hartley since 1966 (1,080 had come from outside the DRDC area).

Employment

A 10% sample of replies was conducted to get details of the sectors people worked in, the figures in the chart below have been multiplied by 10 to get an estimate of totals based on the sample..

Comparisons with later censuses are sometimes difficult because some of the employment categories have changed.  What may be surprising is the fall in the number of people working in manufacturing, as perhaps this part of the country is not viewed as a centre of industry, but more than a quarter worked in manufacture in 1971, now it is only 6.8%.

Employment by sector - Hartley & Hodsoll Street 2011	Working in DRDC Area	Working outside DRDC Area	Total	Percent
Agriculture	0	10	10	0.6%
Mining	0	0	0	0.0%
Manufacturing	70	370	440	26.2%
Construction	60	70	130	7.7%
Utilities/Transport	10	120	130	7.7%
Distribution, Services	270	420	690	41.1%
National & Local Government, Defence	10	130	140	8.3%
Self employed	n/a	n/a	140	8.3%

The 1971 census also looked at female employment.  Based on a 10% sample, it found that 41.1% of the 1,191 women of Hartley aged between 15 and 64 were in employment, with 62% of those working full time and 38% part time.  Women were also more likely to work within the Dartford Rural District than those in employment as as whole.  However the proportion of Hartley females in the work force was only 13.5% for the 25-34 age category, which suggests that in 1971, most women with young children were not in paid employment..

Place of work

The 1971 census did ask for details of the address of their employer, but such detailed statistics are not available.  430 people from Hartley worked within the Dartford Rural District area, and 1,120 worked outside, with a further 140 self employed (this is based on a 10% sample, the figures here are the 10% sample multiplied by 10).  Even 40 years ago the motor car prevailed when it came to work journeys as the table shows (the figures do not add up to 100%, because there was another category for "other/not stated").

Place	Number	Car	Train	Bus	Walk/Cycle
Dartford Rural District	430	44%	5%	7%	26%
Other	1,120	70%	22%	3%	4%
Self Employed	140	79%	7%	0%	0%

Health

The only question on health asked in the 1971 census was whether people of working age were intending to seek work but could not because of illness.  Only 5 in Hartley said this was the case, compared with 1,578 in employment..

Living Standards

The 1971 census did not use the traditional ABCDE social classes that we are familiar with, instead 17 "social-economic groups" are used.  However an approximation is that social class AB is equivalent to SEG 1-3 and 13, C1 = SEG 4-7, C2 = SEG 8-9, DE = SEG 10-11.  In 1971, 24% of Hartley was class AB (Managers, Professional), 44% were C1 (Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial/administrative/professional occupations), 15% were C2 (Skilled Manual) and 16% are DE (Semi-skilled or unskilled).  In 2011 the proportions were not hugely different, but the number of ABs had risen to 31% and the numbers of C1 had fallen to 35%.

Regarding car ownership, most households had 1 car (682 - 56.5%), 331 (27.4%) households had 2 cars, those with more than 2 were only 32 (2.7%).  The number of no car households was slightly higher than today at 162 (13.4%). The quality of Hartley's housing stock seems to be the highest in the DRDC district, only 6 households lacked an inside WC, by far the lowest in the district..

The census uses a measure called "occupancy rating" to tell whether a house is overcrowded. A minus figure indicates overcrowding. In Hartley and Hodsoll Street only 2.7% of houses have a minus occupancy rating, compared with 8.7% for England as a whole.

Acknowledgement

Most data on this page (c) Registrar General for England and Wales, 1971 Census: Aggregate data (Great Britain) [computer file]. UK Data Service Census Support. Downloaded from: http://casweb.mimas.ac.uk. This information is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2].