The author and purpose of the document entitled 'The General Account of the number of persons in each house on January 1st, 1782' in Cardington, Fenlake, Harrowden and Cotton End & Pastors is unknown, although David Baker suggests that it was compiled by Cardington's schoolmaster, James Lilburne.

The transcription of the document itself, the first page of which is illustrated on the frontispiece, has been supplemented from other categories of demographic sources including overseers' accounts, wills, parish registers, tombstones, land tax documents and material created in the course of the 1784 parliamentary election. The result is a reconstitution of Cardington's households in 1782, sixty years before the first surviving census.

It is preceded by a detailed introduction which examines the demography of the parish.