Church or Chapel?!

I have just discovered this fascinating site:
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/GBH_match_page.jsp?ons=Sandwell So I immediately went to the statistics on religion to see how things have changed over time and discovered this:

...only two censuses have ever gathered information on religion in England and Wales, and they were 150 years apart!
The 1851 Census of Religion was a separate census carried out at the same time as the main Census of Population. It assumed that everyone was Christian, and tried to find out what kind of Christians were most important in each district. It did this by counting how many people attended each church on the census Sunday.

This website simplifies the original data (which counted 35 different religious groups in England and Wales!), with the result of a large 'other' category.

In 2001, a question about religion was included among the questions in the main census for the first time ever. Except in Scotland, where there is separate information on the Church of Scotland, Catholics and 'Other Christian', the results lump all Christians together but also gathered information on Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs. People were allowed to write in other religions not included on the census form.

Yet in 2001 many people still described themselves as Christian, over 70% nationally, as compared to 16% claiming 'none'.

The same is true of most individual areas: you have to look hard for the areas where under 50% of the population claim to be Christian, and they are mainly in the large cities. The two lowest percentages are for Tower Hamlets in London (39%) and Leicester (45%), and these figures are explained by concentrations of Muslims and Hindus. The most Christian district in Britain, according to these census figures, was St. Helens in Lancashire (87%).

In Sandwell, in 2001:
- just under 70% (68 or 69%) described themselves as Christian
- 4.5% described themselves as Muslim

In 'Sandwell' in 1851:
- around 35% attended CofE [nationally it was around 50%]
- about 7% were Baptists [nationally around 8 or 9%]
- about 23% were Wesleyan Methodists [nationally it was around 15%]
- there are no records of Calvinistic Methodists [nationally around 2.5%]
- approx. 2 or 3% were Catholic [nationally 3 or 4%]