Watford Union Registration District

[Grundy]

I have received a death certificate dated 1867.

The registration district is Watford Union. (Death in the Sub-district of Watford in the County of Hertford.

This is the first time I have seen "Watford Union" as the district and wonder if any one has an explanation.

The death occured in Langley Road, Watford.

The Watford Union Workhouse was I understood at the Shrodells site in Vicarage Road (then called Hagden Lane) at this time.

Any suggestions please?

Grundy

[Rick]

Hi Grundy

I don't think that the use of Watford Union instead of Watford RD is trying to indicate anything about the workhouse at Vicarage Road itself.  I believe that it has been used in its broadest sense to show that the death occurred in the parishes covererd by the Union - Abbots Langley, Aldenham, Bushey, Rickmansworth, Sarratt and Watford.

See Chris Reynolds article on his Genealogy in Hertfordshire site.

http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/places/unions/watford%20union.htm
http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/home.htm

Rick

[Mean_genie]

Hi Grundy

Rick is absolutely right. The terms 'Union' and 'Registration District' were often used pretty much interchangeably, because when Civil Registration was set up in 1837 it used the Poor Law Union boundaries that had been established only 3 years earlier.

The post of Superintendent Registrar was initially offered to the Clerk to the Board of Guardians of the Union, and many of the registrars of births, deaths and marriages were also Union officers so the two systems were intertwined for a long time.

There were a few cases where very small unions were amalagated with larger adjacent ones, but in the vast majority of cases the Union and the RD were identical.

Mean_genie