This is a general question I guess, re 11, 12 year old boys missing in the 1861 census. I thought mine was the only one, then found the same problem in the Starkey discussion.
I wondered if boys went off island to school, and did a test run. By searching on "Pupil" with no name, and birth IOM, I found a fair number of boys at schools over in Lancashire, Cheshire, even as far away as London. No telling if birth place IOM meant their parents were still back home, but it might be an interesting avenue to follow. It would be possible to school them in Scotland, Wales or Ireland as well as England, in theory anyway.
Does anyone know the real scoop about this issue?