The development of the General Register Office of Ireland

Edward Higgs

The 1836 Births and Deaths Registration and Marriages Acts (6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 85 and 86) made arrangements for the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales from 1837 onwards. This was a locally based system but administered centrally by a Registrar General for England and Wales. The other parts of the then United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland, had to wait some time for similar legislation.

From 1837 all births and deaths in England and Wales had to be registered with the local civil registrar. The legislation also empowered the Established Church of England to register marriages but details had to be passed on to local registrars, and marriages in other churches were to be registered by a civil registrar. A form of civil marriage was also introduced. In Ireland the Roman Catholic Church was concerned that this might detract from the religious nature of the marriage ceremony. Legislation was thus introduced by the government, the 1844 Irish Marriages Act (7 & 8 Vict., c. 81), to facilitate the registration of non-Catholic marriages, and for the appointment of registrars who were also given the power to solemnise marriages by civil contract. The post of Registrar General of Marriages for Ireland was created and given responsibility for the central collection and custody of marriage records. The General Register Office was at first located in the Kings Inn, Dublin from 1848 to 1872 (General Register Office, Ireland, website).

The first Registrar General, who held the post from 1844 to 1876, was William Donnelly, who also became responsible for the taking of the censuses in Ireland from 1851 to 1871. The census in Ireland was a rather more complex affair than that in England and Wales, that for 1851 comprising no less than four main forms: Form A, the family return; Form B, the house and building form; Form C, the sick return for those ill on census night; and Form D, for persons afflicted with idiocy and insanity. There were then a number of other forms for the populations of various institutions (The census of Ireland for the year 1851, v-vi). Donnelly was succeeded by William Malachy Burke, but only for the years 1876–1879. Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw then became Registrar General for the period 1879 to 1900, and was a census commissioner for the Irish censuses of 1881 and 1891. He was working on the 1901 census when he died, and Sir Robert Edwin Matheson, Registrar General for 1900 to 1909, took over. He, in his turn, was succeeded by Sir William John Thompson, Registrar General for the troubled period 1909 to 1926.

In the years after 1844, demand grew for a general system for registering births, marriages and deaths in Ireland. The lack of a comprehensive system in the island was having repercussions in mainland Britain to which many Irish people were moving, especially after the Potato Famine of the late 1840s. The growing number of laws in England and Wales regulating factory employment, public health conditions, and the rights of inheritance, were creating circumstances in which it was necessary for people to prove their age and legitimacy. This caused various problems. In 1854, for instance, the Inspector of Factories for Scotland reported problems in operating the Factory Acts because of the large number of young Irish emigrants looking for jobs with fake birth certificates. The inspector for the Eastern and Metropolitan areas of England reported similar difficulties. By hiring young Irish labourers, factory owners were getting around the legal ban on employing young persons under 18 on certain factory tasks (General Register Office, Ireland, website: http://www.groireland.ie).

In Ireland a variety of interests also pressed for the registration of births and deaths. Presbyterians complained that the absence of registration made it very difficult to establish rights of inheritance, which had been one of the prime reasons for introducing civil registration in England and Wales (Higgs, 2004, 1–21). The Presbyterian Church also noted that those of its members seeking commissions in the colonial service in India could not show proof of their age or origins. The Irish Poor Law Commissioners were also finding it difficult to implement compulsory vaccination against smallpox because of the absence of information about births and deaths. Both the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland called for the introduction of a registration system (General Register Office, Ireland, website).

In 1861, two private Members Bills were put before the House of Commons in London. Both proposals were referred to a Select Committee of Parliament that reported back in the same year (Report on Births, Deaths and Marriages (Ireland) Bill). Eventually, in 1863, a Bill for the registration of births and deaths in Ireland drafted along the lines suggested by the Select Committee was introduced and passed (26 & 27 Vict., c.11). Although the Act did not include Catholic marriages, a private members Bill was passed later that year which resulted in the civil registration of such marriages. A complete Irish civil registration system was then in place. As a result of these acts, William Donnelly produced the First annual report of the Registrar General of marriages, births, and deaths in Ireland covering the year 1864 (First annual report of the Registrar General).

Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century additional legislation was introduced which had implications for the registration system. For example, the Marriage Law (Ireland) Amendment Act 1863 (26 & 27 Vict., c.27) dispensed with the need for registrars to attend marriages in Protestant Dissenting Churches, and other Christian denominations, and provided for the registration of such marriages by the celebrant. The 1880 Births and Deaths Registration (Ireland) Act (43 & 44 Vict., c.13) set out the procedures to be followed and the persons who were required to give information to the registrars in respect of births and deaths. It laid down time limits for persons to comply with the regulations and provided a system for the correction of errors. This was in line with developments that had already taken place in England. Provision was also made for the appointment of assistants to registrars and superintendent registrars and penalties designed to protect the integrity of the records form fraud were introduced (General Register Office, Ireland, website: http://www.groireland.ie).

REFERENCES

First annual report of the Registrar General of marriages, births, and deaths in Ireland, BPP 1868—69 XVI.

General Register Office, Ireland, website: http://www.groireland.ie [This link was available on: 3 January 2006].

Edward Higgs, Life, death and statistics: civil registration, censuses and the work of the General Register Office, 1837–1952 (Hatfield, 2004).

Census of Ireland, 1851, The census of Ireland for the year 1851: Part VI. General report, BPP 1856 XXXI. [View this document: General report, Ireland, 1851]

Report on Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Ireland) Bill, and Registration of Births, &c. (Ireland) Bill; with proceedings and evidence, BPP 1861 XIV.