1911 Census Database

In 1914, when the conflict began, enemy aliens were defined as those who were nationals of the German, Austro-Hungarian or Turkish empires, or (from October 1915 onwards) Bulgarians. The government had no precise means of determining how many of each there were.

As in earlier decades, the 1911 census had asked about each person’s country of birth. The usual reporting and recording difficulties associated with such a delicate question, particularly when further sensitised by the build-up to a coming war, inevitably led to under-reporting.

But the census counts could also be misleadingly high. By 1914 some foreign nationals would have moved abroad, whilst others would not have been permanent residents in the first place. The North East in particular, an area with several large ports, had many foreign sailors who were counted as resident on census night - even if they had been on board a moored ship, making them part of a temporary floating population. This could lead to some very bizarre clusters. For example, the published census data shows 133 Japanese subjects living in the North East, 104 of them in Middlesbrough. A surprising concentration. However, the individual census forms tell us this was almost entirely due to one vessel, the 'Incharga', which on the census night of the 2nd of April happened to be moored in Middlesbrough’s North Eastern dock, adjacent to the town’s Vulcan ward. Of the vessel’s crew of 100, 99 were Japanese.

The figures for North East England as a whole at the time of the 1911 census show 2,224 persons born in Germany, 260 in Austria, 55 in Hungary and 88 in the Ottoman Empire, making 2,627 in all. Of this total, 667 (25%) were British subjects, either by parentage or marriage (14%) or by naturalisation (11%). Once these are excluded, there were 1,960 who were enemy aliens (ie born in an enemy country and retaining that nationality). Of these, 1,668 were Germans, 195 Austrians, 51 Hungarians and 46 Turks.

These four groups of enemy aliens, 1,960 in all, made up just 0.09 per cent of the area’s total population of 2.18 million, less than one in a thousand. Bulgarians, though they were also classified as enemy aliens from October 1915, were very few in number and were grouped for the 1911 census with nationals of the other Balkan countries of Serbia, Romania and Montenegro. The North East census returns had only 28 from these four countries, most of them indicated as being in Newcastle (17) or Gateshead (8).

In addition to 1,960 enemy aliens, the region also had 7,942 friendly aliens - nationals of non-enemy countries such as the United States. Taken together, the total of 9,902 aliens (whether enemy or friendly) made up 0.45% of the total population, a little more than four in a thousand. About three-quarters of the friendly aliens were from Scandinavia, Russia, Italy and Russian Poland (Poland was part of the Russian Empire at the start of the war).

For the area covering North East England, the 1911 census tables give country of birth statistics for nine areas: for the two county borough areas of Newcastle and Tynemouth, and for the Northumberland administrative county area - the rest of Northumberland county; for the four county borough areas of Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland and West Hartlepool, and for the Durham administrative county area - the rest of County Durham; and for the county borough of Middlesbrough.

The distribution of aliens between these nine areas was not uniform, as the chart above illustrates. It shows that Newcastle had the highest number of aliens, 2,119 in all, of which 425 were enemy aliens and 1,694 friendly aliens, and that the total number made up 0.79% of the Newcastle population. This percentage was nearly twice as high as the regional average of 0.45%, but there were three areas with far higher percentages, Tynemouth (1.51%), South Shields (1.33%) and Middlesbrough (1.01%), and South Shields also had a high number of aliens (1,443).

There were also high numbers in the Durham and Northumberland administrative county areas, 1,377 and 1,249 respectively, but despite this the percentages were small (0.15% and 0.34%), because these areas had by far the largest populations, particularly so for the Durham administrative county area. Gateshead and West Hartlepool had low numbers (394 and 370) and also low percentages, 0.34% and 0.58%. Sunderland was fairly close to the regional average in both respects.

Newcastle had the highest number of enemy aliens, followed by County Durham, South Shields and Sunderland. For friendly aliens the order was Newcastle, South Shields, the County of Northumberland and County Durham.

Scandinavian nationals tended to be more numerous in Northumberland and in South Shields and Tynemouth (ie around the Tyne, but less so for Newcastle), whereas Germans and Russians had a more even geographical spread.

Population movements after 1911, particularly during the years of WW1, were to change some of these numbers considerably. In the 1911 census 159 Belgian-born people lived in the region, of whom 99 were friendly aliens. This number was to rise sharply. As the war progressed, the UK received about 250,000 Belgian refugees, several thousand of them coming to the North East. Most of them worked at a Belgian-run munitions factory in Birtley, County Durham. They lived close to their work in a small village known as Elisabethville after the Belgian Queen, Elisabeth of Bavaria. Elisabethville would eventually have a population of over 6,000.