General Register Office: National Registration: 1939 Register

RG 101

1939

This series comprises digitally scanned versions of the enumerator's transcript books for the national registration of the civilian population that took place on the evening of 29 September 1939. The records, which cover only enumeration districts in England and Wales, provide details of name, address, sex, date of birth and occupation for each person registered, so that they could be issued with identity papers and later, ration books. It did not include enlisted members of the armed forces, or people engaged or employed on ships.

PLEASE NOTE: Electronic images of these records can be searched online through our partner website.

The material in this series was made available online through our partner website on 2 November 2015. The piece level descriptions were later added to TNA's online catalogue Discovery during November 2015. The closure status of the series is Open but access to individual personal records on the partner website may be denied, as per the guidance in the Restrictions on Use field.

The registers were originally arranged within bound volumes, with each volume therefore containing a number of individual register booklets for different enumeration districts. These original volume numbers will be shown as part of the piece descriptions.

For correspondence and papers on the administration of the 1939 Register, please see: RG 28

Records relating to Scotland are held by the National Records of Scotland. Records related to Northern Ireland at held at the PRO Northern Ireland. Returns for the Isle of Man are not known to survive.

Public Record(s)

English

66612 register booklet(s)

Under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998, access is not allowed to the records of living individuals. In the absence of information to the contrary, it is assumed that there is a life expectancy of 100 years.

Open

Topics

Census

Rationing

Armed Forces (General Administration)

The records remained in the custody of the General Register Office (ONS) Southport until the transfer of function for maintaining the NHS Central Register, which included these records, was passed to the Information Centre (later renamed the Information Centre for Health and Social Care) in April 2008.

Series is not accruing

Only information relating to the 1939 registration has been selected.

The enumeration of the 29 September 1939 was carried out under the provisions of the National Registration Act 1939 and administered by the General Register Office.