Of the Ratcliffes whose literacy was recorded, 83.3% could both read and write, 1.5% could read but not write, and 15.2% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 87.9% reading and writing against 78.8% of men. Bear in mind these figures include young children; the census itself only counted people aged nine and over when calculating illiteracy, on the grounds that it was unfair to label a child illiterate before they'd had a chance to learn.