Of the Hancocks whose literacy was recorded, 89.4% could both read and write, 2.1% could read but not write, and 8.5% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 91.5% reading and writing against 87.2% 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.