Of the Bashfords whose literacy was recorded, 89.9% could both read and write, 4.3% could read but not write, and 5.8% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 91.4% reading and writing against 88.2% 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.