Civil Registration Timeline

Cornwall Family History Society CFHS Research Library

A timeline of key milestones highlights the evolution of registration, marriage, and legal reforms shaping civil and social records in Britain and Ireland.

1538 Thomas CROMWELL issues orders for parish registers to be kept to record every ‘wedding, christening, and burying’.
1753 Lord HARDWICKE‘s act for ‘the better preventing of clandestine marriages’ means all marriages must take place within the established church (except for those of Jews and Quakers).
1834 When the New Poor Law (1834) replaced the Elizabethan statutes that regulated parish relief, workhouse inmates’ religious rights were protected.
1835 The government began keeping central records of prisons in England following the passing of the Gaols Act and the 1835 Prisons Act.
1836 An ‘act for registering births, deaths, and marriages’ is finally passed with an accompanying Marriage Act (relaxing HARDWICKE’s rules and enabling civil marriages).
1837 Only a few days after Victoria becomes Queen, civil registration begins in England and Wales on 1st July.
1845 The registration of non-Catholic marriages in Ireland begins.
1855 Civil registrations introduced in Scotland on 1st January.
1858 New divorce laws made ending an unhappy marriage a realistic proposition for the first time.
1864 Full introduction of civil registration in Ireland takes place on 1st January.
1874 A registration act is passed updating the 1836 act. Deaths now require a doctor’s certificate and an unmarried father must attend and sign the register to be named on a birth entry.
1898 The Authorized Persons Act means that nonconformist places of worship can now conduct marriages without a registrar needing to attend.
1911 The General Register Office indexes now show a maiden name on birth entries.
1912 Spouse’s surnames are added to the GRO’s marriage indexes.
1926 The Legitimacy Act allows births to be re-registered if the unwed parents have subsequently married.
1926 Yet another Births and Deaths Registration Act introduces the registration of stillborn children.
1927 Adoption is legally regulated, and the Ge
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