British BMD. Registration

Timeline - British Birth, Marriage, & Death Registration

No.	From	To	Subject	Detail
1	1538		Parish Registration	Official parish registration introduced. Loose sheets of paper were used most of which have not survived
2	1551	1854	Scotland Parish Registration	Parish registration introduced in Scotland for births and marriages
3	1597		Bound Registers	By an Act of Parliament, bound registers were made mandatory for baptisms, marriages and burials. Duplicate sets had to be lodged with the bishops each year (Bishops' Transcripts)
4	1653	1660	Elected Parish Register	Registration transferred to an elected Parish Register (Registrar)
5	1660		Restoration of church registration	End of the Interregnum and responsibility for compiling and maintaining registers returned to the previous system
6	1753		Hardwike's Marriage Act	Specified that couples had to marry in a parish in which one of them lived; banns had to be called or a license issued in advance. Marriages had to take place in a licensed building which was invariably Church of England except for Jews and Quakers. Non-conformists and Roman Catholics had to register with their parish church. Effective 1754
7	1812		Rose's Act	Standardised the format of registers into three separate books for baptisms, marriages and deaths. Effective 1 January 1813
8	1837		Civil Registration	A voluntary system of civil registration introduced and marriages could take place at a registrar's office. Effective 1 July 1837
9	1845	1922	Ireland Civil registration	Civil registration of non Roman Catholic marriages introduced
10	1854		Scotland Civil Registration	Act of Parliament passed enabling civil registration. This Act made registration compulsory and also abolished the previous Scottish system. Initially contained details of birth places and previous marriages but these were quickly dropped, although birth places were re-introduced in 1972. Effective 1 January 1855
11	1864	1922	Ireland Civil Registration	Registration of all births marriages and deaths introduced
12	1866		Amendment to death details	Age at death to be included in the death registers. Effective March 1866
13	1874		Amendment to birth and death registration	Registration of births and Deaths made mandatory
14	1911		Amendment to birth details	Mother's maiden name added to birth indexes. Effective September 1911
15	1912		Amendment to Spouse's Surname	Spouse's surname added to the index of registrations. Effective March 1912
16	1922		Separation of Ireland	Following the creation of the Republic of Ireland, the Nothern Ireland and Southern Ireland records were separately compiled.
17	1927		Still births and adoptions	Registration of still births and adoptions introduced
18	1929		Marriage age	Minimum age for marriage increased to 16 years
19	1969		Amendment to death details	Date of birth added to death certificates (if known)
20	2005		Civil Partnerships	Recognition and registration of Civil Partnerships introduced

Franchise Changes 1884 to 2010

No.	From	To	Subject	Detail
1	1884	1918	3rd Reform Act	Extended Franchise to most men over 21 years of age. Domestic Residence qualifcation of 12 months
2	1918	1928	Representation of the People Act	Extended Franchise to most women over 30 years of age. Domestic Residence qualifcation reduced to 6 months
3	1928	1969	Equal Franchise Act	Extended Franchise to most women over 21 years of age.
4	1969		Voting Age	Extended Franchise to most men and women over 18 years of age.

Except where otherwise stated the timeline relates to England and Wales. In general where a "To Date" is not given the Act has not been repealed.

BMDs: It is hoped that if, like me, you regularly need to check when various changes were made in the recording of BMDs the timeline will prove a ready reference. It should be noted that before civil registration became compulsory records were often incomplete; indeed at a census in 1801 of 850 Scottish parishes only 99 compiled registers regularly. Many of the Irish records were destroyed by fire in 1922.

Franchise: Even in 1884 less than 30% of adults were entitled to vote. Prior to then the right to vote included various factors eg. where one lived, income, rates (local taxes) paid and the value of domestic/business hereditaments.

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The BMD Timeline, formatted for Legacy ^® Family Tree may be downloaded from here

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The content last updated 31 January 2010