High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Market Research had its origins in social survey research in the United Kingdom. Some people consider the Domesday Book was the first bit of systematic research it may have been the first census but it was not a sample survey. Social sample survey research came from the enquiring minds of the great English liberal social reformers who were horrified by the conditions in which many of their countrymen were living and used carefully compiled factual reports to drive home the situation to their compatriots. The classics in English social survey research were: Mayhew's "London Life and London Poor" (1861), Charles Booth's monumental 17 volume study of "Labour and Life of the People of London" (1886), Rowntree's "Poverty: A study of Town Life" (1901), and Arthur Bowley's "Livelihood and Poverty" (1912).