In 1851 the Government of the time commissioned a unique survey – a census of religious attendance to be taken on Sunday 30^th March 1851. This was to be taken in parallel with the ordinary census return of population that had been taken every 10 years since 1801.

There is no clear reason exactly why this one-off event was instigated or precisely what was the intended use of the statistics produced. It does, however, provide us with an insight into just how strong church attendance was some 160 years ago.

The population census taken at the same time noted a total of 595 men, women and children were living in Denton.

Of these 125 of the adults were counted at the St Margaret’s Church service that day plus no fewer than 90 Sunday school scholars. The official making the return also had to give an estimate of what would be a ‘normal’ Sunday attendance as the day in question happened to be Mothering Sunday and the average Sunday service figures were given as 100 general congregation plus 117 Sunday school attendees.

This was, of course, only part of the story as a few yards up Bedford Road, the Baptist Chapel was also full of worshippers. The official 'having the care of the chapel', and thus responsible for completing the return, was a George Haycock who noted that there were 96 adults at the morning service plus a further 33 children at the Sunday school. The evening service was even better attended with 210 adults and, again, 33 youngsters. It is odd the proportions of adults and children were so different to the church – were the Baptists less prolific in producing large families?

Obviously many of the number would have attended both the morning and evening services but however the figures are interpreted the only conclusion that can be drawn is that well over half of all Denton dwellers attended church or chapel once or more on the date in question. Furthermore if over 200 children went to Sunday school this must have represented almost all Denton youngsters at the time.

This demonstrates just how important Sunday worship was to a high proportion of villagers – although the Sunday school figures in particular may reflect how ‘obliged’ some of those attending may have been!