National Registration

[healdav]

Going through family papers last week, I came across a card, I can't call it an ID card, for my grandmother, dated 8 September 1915, issued under the "National Registration Act, 1915".

It merely records her name and address and has her down under ( as occupation "Household duties".

What was the purpose of this? Was it to get a list of nonnworking people or to simply record their names or something. There is no photograph, no signature (although on the back is says that it is to be carefully signed and preservwed with changes of residence reported.

[Terry Carter]

One of the aims was to find out how many men, between the ages of 18 and 40, could be available for military service prior to conscription

Terry

[Sue Light]

It was also foreseen that women may be needed to fill jobs vacated by men, and many women's organisations were calling for increased opportunities for war work for their members. In 1915 the data from the 1911 census was still unavailable, so women were also counted, and their occupations recorded, though in a rather half-hearted way.

Sue

[Magnumbellum]

Going through family papers last week, I came across a card, I can't call it an ID card, for my grandmother, dated 8 September 1915, issued under the "National Registration Act, 1915".

It merely records her name and address and has her occupation "Household duties".

What was the purpose of this? Was it to get a list of non-working people or to simply record their names or something. There is no photograph, no signature (although on the back is says that it is to be carefully signed and preserved with changes of residence reported.

It was not an ID card - the abbreviation 'ID' did not exist at that time, being an Americanism imported to the UK sometime around the 1970s-80s. Nor was it an identity card. It was simply an acknowledgement that the holder, as a man or woman aged 16-64, had duly registered under the National Registration Act 1915. The purpose of the registration was simply an assessment of the manpower and womanpower available in the event of military or industrial conscription. Military conscription of men was enacted the following year. Industrial conscription never happened in WW1.

Clearly the holder of the example in question was recognised as working - engaged in household duties.

[healdav]

Well, I did say it wasn't an identitry card (having had a long and bruising argument over several years that if it proves who you are it must be an indentity card; not to a lwayer and diplomat it isn't - they say only a card with international or national recognition as an identity card is one. So, your driving licence with your photo and all your details doesn't actually prove who you are. Go figure, as they say).

I guessed it was something like that, but it is interesting that they say being a housewife is work which presumably gives some sort of deferment of nationa work. They don't mention my mother who was a baby then.

[dycer]

The instructions on the Certificate state.

"This Certificate must be signed and carefully preserved by the person to whom it is issued.

If the place of residence of the holder of this Certificate is changed other than temporarily,the Certificate must within 28 days be handed in at a Post Office,or delivered to the County/Town Clerk of the County or Burgh(Borough) the new residence is situated with the new address written in the space below.A fresh Certificate will be supplied in due course."

Taken from an original Certificate belonging to a Scots Housewife i,e. no occupation recorded.

Presumably, in due course, Registration assisted when rationing was introduced?

George

[healdav]

The instructions on the Certificate state.

"This Certificate must be signed and carefully preserved by the person to whom it is issued.

If the place of residence of the holder of this Certificate is changed other than temporarily,the Certificate must within 28 days be handed in at a Post Office,or delivered to the County/Town Clerk of the County or Burgh(Borough) the new residence is situated with the new address written in the space below.A fresh Certificate will be supplied in due course."

Taken from an original Certificate belonging to a Scots Housewife i,e. no occupation recorded.

Presumably, in due course, Registration assisted when rationing was introduced?

George

She didn't sign it (very naughty!) and there are no address changes,; but I don't imagine that she had moved at that time.

I know very little about her and her famiy. I think he husband (name unknown) worked as a something on the railway in Liverpool. He was, as far as I know, never in the war, and died sometime after the war, after, I think, some longish time after some sort of accident. At least, I vaguely remember overhearing my mother saying to someone that she remembered as a small girl, playing in a park around a nursing/convalescent home.

After that, it is a complete blank, except that, once again I remember vaguely overhearing that she took in lodgers for a time and had the problem of drunks and people trying to steal fromthe house.

At some time before WW2 she and her three children (all now died) went to lived in a, presumably new house, on the East Lancs Road, Liverpool which is where my father came to lodge (having met a brother on a train as he was getting to Liverpool having been posted to Western Approach HQ after the blitz on Plymouth destroyed his offices in Devonport Dockyard). I was then born in the house.

One day, perhaps, very perhaps, I will find out more. In the meantime, the only thing I have is a non-ID card!

[dycer]

healdav,

At time of registration my Aunt's Husband was a recalled reservist,serving in France as a Mounted Military Policeman(per his MIC)

The Family did not change address during the War as their ration books of October 1918 and May 1919 show the same address as recorded on the registration card.

George