Of the Telfords whose literacy was recorded, 85.7% could both read and write, 0.9% could read but not write, and 13.3% could do neither. Men came out slightly ahead, 88.8% reading and writing against 83.3% of women. 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.