Parliamentary legislation, Scotland

Matthew Woollard

Each census in Great Britain has had parliamentary approval. Up to the 1921 round of censuses in England and Wales and Scotland separate acts of Parliament were passed each decade to approve the census. The Act passed in 1920, however, allowed further censuses to be taken without further parliamentary approval, but allows the current Government to ask the monarch to make an Order in Council directing that a census be taken on a particular day. The census in 2001 was taken subject to a number of amending Acts, most notably, the Census (Confidentiality) Act of 1991 and (for England) the Census (Amendment) Act of 2000 (for Scotland) the Census (Amendment) (Scotland) Act of 2000.

The first census act, Census Act, 1800, was passed on the last day of 1800 and had the full title "An Act for taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain, and of the Increase of Diminution thereof". . In twelve detailed paragraphs (which happen not to mention the word census), the administrative machinery of the census was laid down. For England, the Overseers of the Poor (or some "substantial householder"), and for Scotland, persons proposed by the local government officials, were authorised to "take the account of the population". The Act laid down the tight timetable for the whole undertaking, authorised the various local officials to carry out particular tasks, printed the various allowances, and noted the fines for non-compliance. It also described the checking procedures to be used, as well as the duties of the various ministers of the Church in their obligations.

The acts changed slightly between 1801 and 1811 and 1821 and 1831. Legislation for the 1841 census was a radical departure from its predecessors – and was formulated within two Acts.

The first Act (3 & 4 Vict. c.99) Census Act, 1840 "An Act for taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain" had a markedly different title from its predecessors. This Act set up census Commissioners (Registrar General and others) and placed administrative control firmly in the hands of the RG. It allowed for each Registrar's District to be formed into enumeration districts; for Registrars (of Births and Deaths) to choose enumerators subject to the RG's approval; stated which information to be collected; attempted to ensure correct geography; Registrars to verify accounts; abstracts to be presented within a year. The provisions for Scotland were similar to those for England, but reliant on local government system rather than the registrars as the Registration Act did not extend to Scotland.

Each of the acts relating to the taking of the census discussed so far relate to both England and Wales, and Scotland. The act passed in 1850 covered the same geographic areas, while from 1860 to 1890 the four acts were solely for Scotland, following the formation of a separate General Register Office in 1855. For the 1901 and 1911 censuses acts were again passed for all of Great Britain, while in 1921 a new act (Census Act, 1920) was passed which remains in force (with amendments) today. All of these acts can be read on this web site.

Efforts had been made before 1855 to introduce legislation for the registration of births, marriage and deaths in Scotland, those these failed for a number of reasons. According to Cecil Sinclair, the bill introduced in 1847 failed because it was related to an attempt to reform the Scottish marriage laws. In 1852 a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland suggested reforms in registration which eventually led to the legislation of 1854.

Registration (Scotland) Act, 1854 set up the General Register Office for Scotland (though it was described as the General Registry Office in the Act) and the administrative apparatus relating to registration in Scotland. This act made provision for a marked difference in one considerable way from registration in England. From the first, in Scotland, the onus was on the parent (or other responsible person) to inform the registrar about a birth or death, as opposed to the other way around in England and Wales at the time. Legislation in Scotland also allowed the local sheriffs to function in the role of superintendent registrars in England (who were generally local government officials anyway).

The Act was subject to a speedy amending act in the following year (Registration (Scotland) Act, 1855). But this act did not, as some have suggested, limit the amount of information collected in the registration process. The detailed information collected from the first by the Registrar General in Scotland was scaled down in 1856 but this was done without statutory authority. The amending act was mainly to transfer the authority of the Sheriffs to salaried District Examiners.

REFERENCES

C. Sinclair, Jock Tamson's Bairns. A history of the records of the General Register Office for Scotland (Edinburgh: GRO, 2000).