SCOTTISH CIVIL REGISTRATION

‘The issue of patronage ripped apart the Kirk in Scotland’

Prior to 1855, the Church of Scotland was the body tasked with the keeping of vital records. But with the issue of patronage ripping apart the Kirk, and the transformation of the landscape through the Industrial Revolution, it could no longer fulfil its obligations as the state church. The civil registration of births, marriages and deaths had already begun in England and Wales in 1837, and for non-Roman Catholic marriages in Ireland from 1845; a similar system was now deemed to be necessary for Scotland as well.

The 1854 Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act paved the way for a General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) and a new registrar general to be initially based at General Register House in Edinburgh.). Registration commenced on the very first day of 1855, and was compulsory.