Year: 1881 | Province: Ontario | Wikidata: Q7994182

Whitby, Ontario (1881 census)

Name: Whitby (1881)
Address: Ontario, CA

Whitby was a census subdivision in Ontario, recorded in the 1881 Census of Canada with a population of 3,140. The community is grounded to Wikidata Q7994182. The administrative centroid was at approximately 43.896°N, 78.950°W.

Population

In 1881, Whitby had a population of 3,140: 1,562 male and 1,578 female residents.

Population trajectory across census years

Year	Population
1851	7,996
1861	2,697
1871	2,732
1881	3,140
1891	2,551
1901	2,050
1911	1,875
1921	3,119

Cross-year identity established by spatial polygon overlap (SAME_AS chains across the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary files).

Boundary continuity (non-identical overlaps)

Spatial polygon overlaps with adjacent census years where the boundary shifted enough that the SAME_AS chain didn't merge them. These show where the territory came from and went to even when it isn't tracked as the same persistent place.

Earlier boundary forms

In an earlier year, this CSD contained Whitby, 1871 (39.3% share).

Later boundary forms

In a later year, this CSD contained Whitby, Town—Ville, 1891 (8.1% of this CSD's polygon).

Neighbouring Census Subdivisions in 1881

In the 1881 census, Whitby shared boundaries with:

Whitby W-O

Full census record, 1881

The 1881 census recorded 33 measurements for this Census Subdivision across 4 categories.

Population & families (1881). This community's record includes 3,140 total population, 1,578 females, 1,562 males, 1,003 married persons, 614 families, 504 married females, 499 married males, 142 widowed persons, 109 widowed females, 33 widowed males. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Age structure (1881). This community's record includes 1,995 single persons under 18, 1,030 single males under 18, 965 single females under 18. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Buildings & housing (1881). This community's record includes 598 inhabited houses, 598 occupied houses, 50 uninhabited houses, 3 houses under construction. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V1T1.)

Agriculture (1881). This community's record includes 28,885 bushels of turnips, 13,656 bushels of other root crops, 13,117 bushels of potatoes, 12,007 bushels of barley, 10,238 bushels of oats, 7,076 bushels of peas and beans, 3,930 bushels of corn, 3,444 bushels of winter wheat, 2,983 bushels of spring wheat, 915 tons of hay, 660 acres of hay crops, 355 acres of wheat, 220 bushels of rye, 122 bushels of clover, timothy, or other grass seed, 102 acres of potatoes, 70 bushels of buckwheat. (Source: 1881 Census of Canada, V3T24.)

People with Dictionary of Canadian Biography entries

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography includes biographies of 83 people connected to this place who were alive in 1881, listed below by birth year. Each name links to that person's DCB entry.

Name	Lifespan	Connection
Mary Thompson	b. 1801	born here
Benjamin Wait	1813–1895	born here
John Beverley Robinson	1820–1896	born here
Samuel Wilmot	1822–1899	born here
James Cox Aikins, mla	1823–1904	born here
Darby Bergin	1826–1896	born here
James Beatty Grafton	1826–1909	born here
Jacob Hunter Todd	1827–1899	born here
Letitia Youmans	1827–1896	born here
William Thomas Aikins	1827–1897	born here
William Cameron Chewett	1828–1897	born here
Anne Gregg Ryan	1830–1901	born here
Mary Ann Wilson	1830–1908	born here
Teresa McDonell	1833–1917	born here
Erastus Wiman	1834–1904	born here
John Freeman Davis	1835–1916	born here
William McCabe	1835–1903	born here
C. A. (Charles Augustus) Semlin	1836–1927	born here
David Allanson Jones	1836–1910	born here
Maurice S. (Maurice Scollard) Baldwin	1836–1904	born here
Robert Henry Bethune	1836–1895	born here
Hannah Grier Coome	1837–1921	born here
James Branston Willmott	1837–1915	born here
Britton Bath Osler	1839–1901	born here
W.H. (William Henry) Withrow	1839–1908	born here
Colin Burgess	1840–1905	born here
George Albertus Cox	1840–1914	born here
John Dryden	1840–1909	born here
Sir Charles Moss	1840–1912	born here
Charles Arkoll Boulton	1841–1899	born here
Denis O’Connor	1841–1911	born here
Robert Bell	1841–1917	born here
Hector Mansfield Howell	1842–1918	born here
Margaret O’Neill	1842–1927	born here
William Albert Reeve	1842–1894	born here
Elizabeth Bingham	1843–1934	born here
John Joseph Cassidy	1843–1914	born here
Lyman Melvin Jones	1843–1917	born here
Thomas Simpson Sproule	1843–1917	born here
Matilda Ridout	1844–1910	born here
Nathaniel Clarke Wallace	1844–1901	born here
John B. Mather	1845–1892	born here
Sir Edmund Boyd Osler	1845–1924	born here
Adam Henry Wright	1846–1930	born here
Daniel Hunter McMillan Canadian politician (1846-1933)	1846–1933	born here
Marion Fairweather	1846–1923	born here
William Tyndale Jennings	1846–1906	born here
Alfred Moore Phillips	1847–1896	born here
George Henry Ham	1847–1926	born here
Henry James Grasett	1847–1930	born here
James Elliot Graham	1847–1899	born here
L. McMaster	1847–1903	born here
Arthur Jukes Johnson	1848–1921	born here
Daniel Francis Burk	1848–1917	born here
Charles March	1849–1908	born here
Sir William Osler	1849–1919	born here
Thomas Joseph Workman Burgess	1849–1926	born here
Benjamin Fish Austin	1850–1933	born here
Grace Sarah Hall Thompson	1850–1907	born here
John Houston	1850–1910	born here
Thomas Henry Best	1850–1928	born here
James Albert Manning Aikins	1851–1929	born here
John Wilson Bengough	1851–1923	born here
A.H.F. (Augustus Henry Frazer) Lefroy	1852–1919	born here
Fergus Patrick McEvay	1852–1911	born here
James Carruthers	1853–1924	born here
Robert Allan Pyne	1853–1931	born here
Alice G.	1854–1938	born here
Lillian Frances Massey	1854–1915	born here
Richard Irvine Bentley	1854–1909	born here
Robert John Fleming	1854–1925	born here
Edward Hanlan	1855–1908	born here
George Frederick Galt	1855–1928	born here
Levi Thomson	1855–1938	born here
Margaret Ruttan Boucher	1855–1931	born here
Mossom Martin Boyd	1855–1914	born here
Anna Bella Peel	1856–1933	born here
Caroline Louisa Josephine Irwin	1856–1939	born here
George Tate Blackstock	1856–1921	born here
John Stoughton Dennis	1856–1938	born here
Patrick Burns	1856–1937	born here
Sir Frank Stillman Barnard	1856–1936	born here
Caroline Sophia Brown	1862–1936	died here

Residents in 1881

The 1881 census residents page for this Census Subdivision lists 3,140 individuals enumerated here, with name, age, sex, religion, ethnic origin, birthplace, and occupation. Source: TCP/Dillon 1881 Canadian Census deposit at Borealis.

Identifiers

TCP UID: ON132003 — year-scoped identifier from the Canadian Census Subdivision boundary file
Persistent place ID: PLACE_ON133010 — computed from spatial-overlap chains across census years
Wikidata: Q7994182
Wikipedia (EN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitby_Township

Sources

Census tabulations from the 1881 Census of Canada, transcribed and georeferenced by the Canadian Peoples / TCP project, hosted at the HGIS Lab, University of Saskatchewan. Persistent place identity computed from spatial-overlap chains across all available census years (1851–1921). Identity grounding to Wikidata performed via the HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph project's MCP-assisted disambiguation pipeline. See the About / Methodology page for the full data pipeline.

Cite this page

Clifford, J. (2026). "Whitby, Ontario (1881 census)" in HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph. Retrieved from https://jimclifford.ca/hgiscanada/places/on/whitby-on132003-1881/.