More like a baked custard,as these puddings were cooked.

Here are some recipes from The New London Family Cook(1800) by Duncan McDonald who was the cook at the Bedford Coffee hosue, Tavern and Hotel,haunt of John Thorpe and General Tilney in Northanger Abbey.

General Observations on Custards and Cheesecakes.

Cheesecakes , when made, shoudl be immediately put into a moderately heated oven, as standing long will occasion them to become oily, and give them a bad appearance.

Cheesecakes.

Strain the whey from teh curd of two quarts of milk ; when rather dry, crumble it through a coarse sieve, mix it with six ounces of fresh butter, one ounce of powdered blanched almonds, orange -flower water, half a glass of currants, nutmeg and cinnamon, in fine powder, and beat all the above with three eggs, and half a pint of cream , till quite light; fill the patty pans three parts full

pp 285-6.

You are quite right about them being small individual puddings,Line: as you can see from the recipe above they were cooked in small patty tins,for individual servings.

Here is a link to ivan Days historic Foods website on custards to give you some idea of how they might have looked,Line.

Apropos of nothing,my MIL used to make cheesecakes this way and was stunned when I first presented her with the more , to me,usual uncooked kind!

As to the popluation, in 1801 the first official census showed that Bath had a population of 34,000. It was the eight largest city in Britain,as a result. However remember that only arrivals and departures of visitors would have been noted in the Bath Chronicle, and not all the family/party membesr were inlucded(JA was not mentioned, nor was her motehr or teh children in edward's party).