National Institute for Statistics. Commerce and industry census of 1961. Individual forms

Collection description

Title:: National Institute for Statistics. Commerce and industry census of 1961. Individual forms

Title (official language):: Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek. Handels- en Nijverheidstelling van 1961. Individuele telformulieren

Creator/accumulator:: Algemene directie Statistiek en Economische Informatie/Direction générale Statistique et Information économique

Scope and content:: This fonds contains the questionnaires filled in by businesses owners in the context of the census of 31 December 1961. The fonds contains various types of forms including information on the business owner, such as first and last name, date of birth, nationality, (primary and secondary) profession, marital status, but also information on the business and its activities – for example, the size of the business, the type of business activity (crafts, industry), the number of paid employees and the nature of the work. (This fonds is indirectly related to the Jewish population.)

Administrative/biographical history:: Although a Bureel voor Algemene Statistiek was set up at the Ministry of the Interior already in 1831, the different ministries continued to establish statistics on their own for quite some time. Only in 1939 did a royal decree lead to the centralisation of statistical data with this service. Since 1940 it has been supervised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The denomination Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek dates back to 1946. Since 2003, it is a General Direction of the FPS Economy, SMEs, Self-Employed and Energy. The service was notably responsible for the various censuses of population, agriculture, commerce and industry etc. (E. Buyst, “De FOD Economie, KMO, Middenstand en Energie (het voormalige Ministerie van Economische Zaken en zijn voorgangers)”, in P. van den Eeckhout & G. Vanthemsche (ed.), Bronnen voor de studie van het hedendaagse België 19e – 21e eeuw. Tweede herziene en uitgebreide uitgave, Brussel, Koninklijke Commissie voor Geschiedenis / Commission Royale d’Histoire, 2009, pp. 451-464.)

System of arrangement:: The documents are ordered by province, arrondissement (district) and finally municipality.