Becoming A City: Demographics

Behind the dry-looking figures of the census and the annual statistics of Queensland is a snapshot of life in the early years of the century. Unfortunately, the census district for Ipswich did not correspond with the local authority area, but the statistics are still helpful in understanding life in the region at that time.

The population of the Ipswich census district in 1901 was 11,931 with slightly more women than men. It was a young population, with just over half under the age of 21 and only 497 over the age of 65. Only three people were over 90. It is not possible to get an exact current comparison because of boundary changes, but in the 2001 Census, only about 30% of people in south-east Queensland were under 21.

In the census district, 3550 people were married and only one person was divorced, while 12.4% of adult women and 5% of adult men were widowed.

The majority of residents, 8366, were born in Australia and 3187 were born in the British Isles. The next most common birthplace was Germany (179). (This figure was greater in surrounding census areas such as West Moreton where 15% of residents had been born in Germany.) There were no residents born in Asia or India and only four from the Pacific Islands. Only two Aboriginal people were listed.

The most common religion was Church of England, followed by Catholic but there were quite a large number of separate Protestant groups which collectively were the most numerous. There were also 7 “Hebrews” and 28 “Mohametans (Muslims) and Pagans”.

The statistical year book of 1904 provides some additional details. Only 104 Ipswich properties had the telephone connected. The School of Arts library had 7417 books and was not a free service - 251 subscribers paid a relatively large amount annually to use the library. Harrisville, Bundamba and Blackstone also had small libraries. [1]