Denaby in 1861
At the time of the 1861 census Denaby (now known as Old Denaby) had a total population of 203 persons 102 males and 101 females. Though most of the residents had been born with. a twenty-mile radius of the village less than half the population were actually born in Denaby and fifty-eight of these were children. Agriculture was the dominant source of employment, the railway provided two jobs, as cleaner and gate keeper, and the solitary coalminer (one George Frost) was 'away working at a coal mine' on the date of the census and only an error by the enumerate (later corrected) led to his inclusion in the Denaby information.
The majority of the thirty-seven houses within the enumeration district were unnamed and merely listed as 'Cottage House, Denaby Village'. Of those houses named there were three implied references to local industry: 'Denaby Engine', a farm house connected with eighteenth century coalmining; 'Denaby Quarry House' and 'Denaby Gait', (sic) a railway gate house situated inside the level crossing of the Mexborough-Doncaster section of the South Yorkshire Railway. The above refers to the period prior to the sinking of the Denaby Main Colliery.