THE 1856 CENSUS

Aden’s first census under British rule was carried out during the morning of 1 January 1856. Unlike the census in future years it covered only those on the peninsula. The statistics produced by Lieutenant Playfair are very detailed and full of interest. There is space to mention only a few in this article.

The British amounted to 791, mostly the men of the British battalion; included in the total were 62 women and 78 children (presumably those under 12). Non-British Europeans were literally not more than a handful. Other Christians were 103 Indians, 35 Anglo-Indians including 10 couples and their children and nearly 200 Indo-Portuguese, almost all men, presumably from Goa. One wonders what this last group were doing in Aden? As crews on dhows were listed separately it seems unlikely that these were seamen.

There were more Indians than one might have expected: over 2,500 Muslims, including over 200 from the Punjab and nearly 200 Afghans. Almost 1,800 of the total were described as ‘Hindu Muslims’. There were more than twice as many Hindus than Muslims – over 5,600 – with Mahrattas accounting for over 52% of the total. Presumably there was a Mahratta battalion in Aden at the time.

The next unexpected statistic was how few original inhabitants of Aden there were in 1856, less than 20 years after Aden had been occupied by Britain. Out of just over 4,800 Arabs only 965 were classed as ‘original inhabitants’, of whom only 270 were men. About 1,650 Arabs were from the Aden hinterland and another 1,580 were from the Yemen, in particular from the Moccha area. Another unexpected statistic is that less than 35% of the civilian population was Arab.

As with other census the Parsees and Jews were there too. The former numbered about 60, nearly all men; there were over 1,200 of the latter, divided into two distinct groups: Bombay Jews numbered over 180 (over 37% being children – an unusually high proportion for Aden) with all except five of the remainder being Arab Jews, many of whom may well have also qualified under the heading ‘original inhabitants’.

A number of people were listed by their profession rather than by their origin. There were nearly 100 on board merchant ships in the harbour and over 700 on country craft (dhows and buggalows), almost exclusively men; in addition there were 165 inmates in the local prison, including one woman and one boy. One group that catches the eye is those in the ‘daily kafilah’ – i.e. those who had arrived with the daily caravan and not listed by their origin: over 560 altogether, including 80 women or boys, but no girls. The final profession to be listed not by origin was ‘women of the town and their servants’. There were 25 males in the latter category and there may have been some servants among the 55 in the former.

Put together this multi-racial society par excellence numbered 14,767 civilian inhabitants (of whom 57.8% were men) plus 5,961 military personnel and their followers, women and children each accounting for about 860 of the total.

Two days after writing the above the author of this piece came across some additional information which solves the problem as to why there were so few true Adenis in 1856. Two or three years before Captain Haines took possession of Aden in 1839 he visited it whilst surveying the south Arabian coastline. He recorded that in Aden village (Crater) there were only about 600 people, it having been sacked by the Fadhli tribe a short time before. About 250 of the 600 were Jews and 300 were Arabs, the remainder being described as ‘Banians’ which in this instance probably meant Indian (Hindu) traders. By 1840 the population of Aden, not counting the military, was estimated at 4,600.

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