Home Office: Immigration and Nationality Department and predecessors: Registers of...

HO 372

1906-1963

This series contains registers of deportees which record name, nationality, date of conviction, offence, whether deportation order revoked and, if so, when.

The volumes have been arranged in date order, within series as indicated by the volume number. These volume numbers appear to have been given retrospectively, and it is not clear whether the surviving volumes represent the complete original series or only part of it.

Public Record(s)

English

• Home Office, Aliens Department (B Department), 1913-1962
• Home Office, Department S, 1904-1913
• Home Office, Domestic Department, 1782-1913
• Home Office, Immigration and Nationality Department, 1962-1962

29 volume(s)

Topics

Migration

Deportation was the power to expel aliens who had become paupers or criminals, and was first given under the Aliens Act 1905 and continued under subsequent amendments to the Act and an Order in Council made in 1920.

Courts could recommend the deportation of an alien found guilty of certain specified crimes or of an offence for which a fine could not be substituted for imprisonment. Deportation could be recommended in addition to or in lieu of sentence. The Home Secretary was not bound to act on the recommendation of the court and might decide not to make an expulsion order, for example in cases where a person had been resident for a long time or might suffer political persecution on return to the native country. The Home Secretary could also deport an alien who had not committed a criminal offence where this appeared to be in the public interest. Common reasons for such expulsions were failure to register with or report regularly to the police, ignoring work restrictions, and becoming a charge on public funds. Deported aliens were not permitted to return.