A mass protest by women campaigning to be allowed to vote has finally come to public attention, almost a century too late to make a difference. Hundreds of suffragettes risked prosecution in 1911 by spoiling their census forms in a coordinated revolt.

But the full impact of their boycott has not emerged until today because of secrecy rules. Census information is usually kept secret for 100 years, but the 1911 documents have been released three years early because the rule was not enshrined in law until 1920.

The documents show how women refused to fill in their names and left comments in the margins. One suffragette taking part in the boycott arranged by the Women’s Freedom League wrote: “If I am intelligent enough to fill in this paper, I am intelligent enough to put a cross on a voting paper.”

Another glued a poster over the form stating: “No votes for women, no census.” A piece of paper stuck to the form suggests that the women stayed away from households where the census was taken to attend a protest in Trafalgar Square.

Times Archive, 1911: The census: Suffragist campaign of resistance

A considerable crowd gathered in Trafalgar Square, where on Saturday a meeting of the Women's Freedom league had been held to explain the boycott

• Failure of the suffragist efforts of evasion

• Dr. Ethel Smyth's 'Non-Census Night' concert.

• Archive Topic: Votes for women

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The public protest was reported in The Times on April 3, 1911, but its full extent remained hidden to the public. The report, headlined “A suffragist ‘campaign’ of resistance”, observed that almost all of those present at the Trafalgar Square protest were men. Women were granted the right to vote seven years later, although they were not given equal voting rights until 1928.

The 1911 census is the most revealing to be published because it includes the handwritten entries from the heads of each household. In earlier surveys the only surviving documents were the summaries produced by professional enumerators, who excised any attempts at humour.

Jokes that have survived in the 1911 documents include a man whose entry describes an occupant of his house as “Peter Tabby” and lists his occupation as “mouser”. His nationality is “Persian”. The enumerator has crossed out the entry with red ink and noted sternly: “This is a cat.”

The snapshot of 36 million people in England and Wales also gives an insight into the households of the rich and famous. Winston Churchill, who lived at 33 Leicester Square in Central London, described himself as “one of Her Majesty’s principal secretaries of state”.

The Royal Household also participated. A servant has filled in George V’s first name as “HM” and his surname as “King George”. The record lists Queen Mary, Prince Edward, Prince Albert and Prince John, and about five pages of household staff, including a police inspector and a “foreman of the cellars”.

The census is available for a fee at 1911census.co.uk or for free at the National Archives in Kew, London.

Stars with humble origins

The census also reveals the humble ancestors of modern celebrities

Amy Winehouse’s maternal ancestors emigrated from Russia to London in the 19th century and were living in Spitalfields, East London, in 1911. Abraham Grandish, born 1855, worked as a hawker selling fruit while his daughter Fanny, born 1895, was employed as a waterproofer.

David Beckham’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, John Beckham, was employed by a London borough council as a “scavenger” to go through people’s rubbish looking for objects of value. John’s son, William, was a cart or van driver.

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