Of the Bleakleys whose literacy was recorded, 80.6% could both read and write, 2.5% could read but not write, and 16.9% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 83% reading and writing against 77.9% 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.