Unexpected information in 1851 census

[Susan48]

The enumerator for the village of Lindsey in the Cosford district of Suffolk recorded some unexpected additional information in the 1851 census. For some children of school age he recorded in the Occupation column "Sun sch", presumably short for Sunday school. For some young persons old enough to work but under the age of 18 he put, after the occupation (e.g. Ag lab), "evg school" (which Findmypast transcribed as "eng"). The census reference is HO107 1790 597 7
Has anyone else come across references to evening classes and Sunday school in the censuses, particularly the early ones? I don't remember seeing them before.

 

[peter]

In 1851 there were 2.4 million children registered as belonging to a Sunday School - see this page. I imagine that the evening school provided more advanced instruction for children who had attended Sunday school when they were younger.

 

[Susan48]

Thank you for the statistics, which are useful, but I was hoping to find out if anyone else had come across this particular information recorded against individuals in other census returns. School age children usually have "Scholar" in the occupation column.

 

[peter]

If you search for *Sun*Sch* in the 1851 Census at Findmypast there are just 5482 examples. There are far fewer for *Eve*Sch*

Given the statistics I qu0ted previously it seems clear that most householders didn't go into this level of detail about their children's education.