1939 - what have you found?

[ScouseBoy]

How many different offices  in how many geographical locations  maintained the NHS register, I wonder?

[pursebearer]

Oldest people in the 1939 register: (no-one born before 1835 listed)
John C Francklow born 1835, died 1944 North Bucks aged 109
Julia Cass born 1835, died 1939 Bridgwater aged 104

There is actually one person allegedly born in each of 1825, 1824 and 1821, so respectively 114, 115 and 118 years old. Even less likely is the person born in 1964 who would thus not be born until 25 years in the future! I suspect that the validation of data entered was less than thorough.

Other odd statistics: From 1836 there are 13 survivors, from 1837 there are 20. However if you search for 1838 or later years there are 170,000, even if you search for a range of years! Maybe it's a coincidence but 1838 is the first full year of civil registration, but how could this be relevant?

Of the 41 million persons supposed to be listed there are 4,095,901 born 1916-39 (so have been un-redacted). The 1951 census at www.ons.gov.uk shows the number of people born 1916-39 was then 15,849,894, so probably 12 million of the 40 million people in the register are currently closed. It is possible to search using a last name of double quote (") and this seems to indicate there are 3.4 million records with no last name, although it's difficult to check as it's not possible to view results beyond the 100th page. Additionally there are 107,000 last names that begin with a question mark, so that looks like a possible further 3.5 million records that will never be found on any conventional search by name. Then there are the records with question marks within the name and names that have been mis-transcribed, it's a wonder anyone can be found at all. My uncle Cuthbert was listed as Catherine and female, though fortunately could still be found as his birth date was correct.

[pursebearer]

How many different offices  in how many geographical locations  maintained the NHS register, I wonder?

I think this is the list:
http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/1939-register-enumeration-districts

[pinot]

Thanks, Pursebearer, for the most useful referenceI'm sure it will help many of us. 

[LizzieW]

Further to my comment about my cousin's married name being added to the 1939 registration list even though she didn't marry until 1955, I'm still surprised they added her married name to the 1939 registration list so many years later and bearing in mind that when she was shown with my parents and gran she was only visiting.  She lived with her own parents and younger brother all her life until her marriage, so it was pointless changing her name on a register taken in 1939, showing her at an address then, when by 1955 my parents and I had also left the address.  But that's bureaucracy for you I suppose.

[Redroger]

They follow their guidelines rigidly. A former colleague of mine who worked in the DWP at Doncster told me that if an item could be processed immediately it would be, and the resultant letter and instructions filed until the day it was due to be processed, so if a response was required in 28 days then it would be made in 28 days. The result of successive governments trying to speed things up. The reasoning behind this was that if they replied early their employers would want to tighten the deadlines resulting in possible redundancies.

[Mean_genie]

Updated information was added to the 1939 Register for many years after it was taken because it was the central register first for National Registration purposes, and then for the NHS. So adding a person's new name was not pointless; it was never intended to be a static document like a census, it was created to be a live register with up-to-date name and address details (and more) of everyone in England and Wales, and this is the function it fulfilled for over 60 years until the paper-based system was replaced with an electronic database. 

Registering everyone where they happened to be on 29 September 1939 was just a way of capturing the whole population in one go and issuing everyone with an Identity Card. It didn't matter in the slightest whether someone was at their permanent address or was just visiting, because their address would also be updated whenever they moved, whether it was the next day, or decades later.

[LizzieW]

OK.  But I thought everyone had National Identity Cards during and after the war which served the same purpose.  I suppose it gave the bureaucrats something to do.  If businesses ran the way government does, they'd all be bankrupt within a few months.

[Guy Etchells]

Updated information was added to the 1939 Register for many years after it was taken because it was the central register first for National Registration purposes, and then for the NHS. So adding a person's new name was not pointless; it was never intended to be a static document like a census, it was created to be a live register with up-to-date name and address details (and more) of everyone in England and Wales, and this is the function it fulfilled for over 60 years until the paper-based system was replaced with an electronic database. 

Registering everyone where they happened to be on 29 September 1939 was just a way of capturing the whole population in one go and issuing everyone with an Identity Card. It didn't matter in the slightest whether someone was at their permanent address or was just visiting, because their address would also be updated whenever they moved, whether it was the next day, or decades later.

It is not a simple as that in 1939 it was designed as you say to be updated if required but the war was never envisaged to last as long as it did.
A little while after the war all work on the National Register was supposed to have been stopped. Questions were even asked in Parliament if it had been finished with and assurances were given in Parliament that the National Register was no longer being used.
The 1939 National Registration Act itself was repealed on 22 May 1952.

It seems though that those assurances were basically deliberate lies to deceive MPs, I say deliberate lies as the questions were asked on a number of occasions and the answer was always the same only the number ing systen was still required.

One example of an exchange is at

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1953/may/21/national-registration-numbers#S5CV0515P0_19530521_HOC_51

National Registration Numbers
HC Deb 21 May 1953 vol 515 cc2233-4 2233

§ 11. Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
asked the Minister of Health for what purposes national registration numbers are still required; and when the use of these numbers will be abandoned.

§ Mr. Iain Macleod
National registration has been wholly abandoned. Some numbering system, however, is necessary for purposes of the National Health Service and, for reasons of economy, this is based upon the old numbers.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
How is it possible for the Minister to say that national registration has been completely abandoned when people are required to keep, remember and make use of their national registration numbers? Is he not, in effect, still attempting to hoax the public into believing that national registration has been abandoned, whereas unless the individual remembers his national registration number he can find himself in all kinds of difficulties?
2234

§ Mr. Macleod
Oh, no. Any large scheme—for example, the National Health Insurance scheme before the Health Service was introduced—is bound to be based upon a system of numbers. We have used the same system of numbers, but national registration, happily, does not exist any more, and as a consequence a lot of staff and a great deal of money have been saved.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
We have to have a number?

Mr. Iain Macleod was the MP for Enfield West and Minister of Health (Conservative)
Lieut.-Colonel Lipton was the MP for Brixton (Conservative)

Cheers
Guy