The well-known Godoy Census was conceived as a tool for the general population count promoted by Manuel Godoy y Álvarez de Faria, First Secretary of State and Office of Charles IV. When it was published in 1801, it provided valuable data that gave an insight into the situation in Spain at the end of the 18th century. Its main characteristic is based on economic and not demographic knowledge, as it was drawn up as an improved renewal of the Floridablanca Census. This tool allows a detailed reconstruction of the activities of the manufacturing sector in Avilés at the end of the Ancien Régime. In this sense, the service sector highlighted the key role of trade, as Avilés had a mercantile tradition since the Middle Ages. As it was located in a central position in Asturias, which made it a demander of products, a commercial class was consolidated in the region that covered the supply circuits. One of the groups with a certain weight in the council was the military, as Avilés was the capital of the maritime province of the same name (from Gijón to Castropol). Military administration professions such as troops and sailors – active or retired – and others depended on the Navy Commissioner, Rafel Gómez Roubaud, a personal friend of Godoy. Attention to educational institutions is also relevant, when Asturias was at the bottom of the list in terms of school enrolment: 93.5% were boys and 6.5% girls. Likewise, the census reflects the personnel dependent on the Church, including sacristans, those people who lived with the religious (donados and educandas) next to the buildings destined for worship. Finally, it includes domestic service, the bulk of which was carried out by domestic servants, as it was a fundamentally female job.

Collection: Statistics

Project: 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity., 4. Family, daily life and social inequality in Europe.

Chronology: XVIII

Scope: Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, University

Link: https://adeh.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/RDH-JIPS-2020-n2_Pablo-Sanchez.pdf

Resource type: Statistics

Format: Table

Source: Sánchez Pascual, Pablo, «El concejo de Avilés a través del Censo de Godoy (1797)», Revista de Demografía Histórica, vol. 38, nº2, 2020, pp. 135–166.

Language: Spanish

Date: 2020

Owner: Álvaro Romero González (Modernalia)

Copyright: ©Pablo Sánchez Pascual, ©Revista de Demografía Histórica

Abstract: Trades dedicated to the service sector collected in Avilés in 1797

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