Mandatory Registration

[patrish]

What year was mandatory registration of bmd's introduced please.


Patrish

[SueTeakle]

i believe it was 1837

[Little Nell]

Civil registration began in England and Wales on 1st July 1837.

For Scotland it was 1 January 1855.

mandatory

Some births still didn't make it though 

It was not until 1875 that a more rigorous system of fines was introduced in the event of non-registration.  I read that in the early years, some people thought that so long as the child was baptised, there was no need to register them.  Also birth dates were altered to make sure they fitted within the 6 week notification period.

Nell

[patrish]

Thanks Sue and Nell,

I knew is was somewhere around the 1870,s that what I wanted.


Patrish.

[Lendevon]

One of the peculiarities of the early days of registration is that hardly anyone was born in Wales. Apparently they had religious objections to it!