Lord Bracknell
On fire
You can search for brief details (name, date and place) of all births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales between 1837 and about 1915 here:-What web site are you using Lord B. I'd love to see where my great grandparents were from!!
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl
To get more details (ie a copy of the certificate), you then need to use the reference number to order the certificate from:-
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/default.asp
[Certificates cost £7.50 each]
As for the census records, I'm a subscriber to www.ancestry.com which gives me access to all the census information between 1841 and 1901.
But there are a number of sites than give free access to some of the census records.
A transcription of the whole of the 1881 census of England and Wales can be found, free of charge, here:-
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=census/search_census.asp
But you have to be a bit wary of the transcription - there is a huge number of errors. That's why I subscribe to ancestry.com - you get to see the original images of the census return forms. As an example of what I mean, my great great grandfather, Walter Bassford, appears in the transcribed version of the 1881 census as "William Malsford".