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Archiver > ENG-LIVERPOOL > 2003-04 > 1049260995
From: "Christine McNamara" <>
Subject: [ENG-LIV] 1901 Census matters
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 17:23:15 +1200
Hello Listers
I hope that this will be of interest to all, and that those living in the UK may be able to do a bit of pushing through their local MPs. The lady I get this from is a volunteer at the local LDS Family History Centre and belongs to the London mailing list. This is quite a long message so I do hope our lovely listowner ladies will let it through!
Regards
Christine Mc
Napier NZ
To all my dear friends and relatives,
Some of you may have received this message from Denis McCready already. I do hope you will read it and digest it!.
Basically we do not understand why there is this paranoia about the census records.
Les and I have read TOP SECRET records from the Second World War at the Public Record Kew. There was only a thirty year ban on them.
For many of us in the Colonies it is important for us to find out about relatives left behind in the U.K. when our forebears emigrated in the early 1900's. Many lost touch and now the grandchildren of those original immigrants and wanting to find relatives in 1911 and come forward from them to find present day relatives. Is that such a crime???
I do hope you will all give Denis McCready support as he has fought long and hard for about fifteen years now to get this 100 year ban lifted.
We ask especially those in the U.K. to get in touch with their M.P's and get them to ask questions in the House of Commons.
Les and I hope you are all well. We are fine.
Chris and Les Hough in New Zealand.
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Census Access News
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 8:21 PM
Subject: Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003
Welcome to Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003
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Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends who would appreciate receiving it.
UK 1911 CENSUS REGISTER
Do you need to inspect and copy the 1911 census returns for England & Wales? If so, just email the Editor at under the subject 1911 CENSUS. Please include your full name, address, postcode, country and permission to copy your requirements to the UK government.
MORE CENSUS PROPAGANDA FROM THE LORD CHANCELLORS DEPARTMENT
This is a story that ministers in the Lord Chancellors Department would prefer to keep hidden. You may have heard rumours that ministers and their officials have been spreading misleading stories about census legislation for years but doesnt this story take the biscuit?
Mr T of Boreham Wood, Herts, UK, tells us that he wrote to his MP in January 2003 to ask for help because he had heard that the government seems to be unlawfully withholding access to the 1911 Census for England & Wales, which he wants to inspect and copy. His MP agreed to take up his case.
Mr T reports that his MP, James Clappison, has recently received a grossly inaccurate and misleading letter from a minister in the Lord Chancellors Department. Mr Ts MP was told: The 1911 Census returns were subject to the provisions of the Census Act 1920, which COMPLETELY prevented their public disclosure.
Coming from a government minister, youd think that would be the end of the matter. But the minister - Rosie Winterton MP, the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellors Department must have known that her letter was NOT entirely truthful. Its inaccurate and typical of census propaganda that has emerged from government departments in recent years. We believe that there are three very good reasons for believing that the minister was attempting to mislead Mr Ts MP.
1. The Census Act 1920 wasnt passed by Parliament until NINE years after the 1911 Census was taken. The 1911 Census was taken under the provisions of the Census Act 1910, not the Census Act 1920.
2. UK Census Acts do NOT prevent the lawful disclosure of ANY Census records: they guarantee that census records will be kept confidential but NOT for an unlimited period of years.
3. The Public Records Act 1958 places a legal duty on the head of the Public Record Office to disclose census records as soon as they are 30 years old or after a longer or shorter period to be determined by the Lord Chancellor and the Registrar-General.
As you may have heard, hundreds of researchers have already emailed us to say that they want to inspect and copy the 1911 Census records. How much longer will those census researchers and their MPs continue to be fobbed off with ministerial misinformation? How much longer will Parliament fail to notice, or react to, ministerial deception?
DO YOU HAVE ANY VIEWS ON GOVERNMENT CENSUS PROPAGANDA?
In eNEWS No.1 we reported on census propaganda from the Public Record Office website for schools. We revealed that the PRO has been inaccurately telling schools that the Government has ALWAYS guaranteed that personal census records will be closed for 100 years. And now we report that census propaganda is being sent to MPs by a minister in the Lord Chancellors Department.
If you share our concerns about the growth of government census propaganda, wed be glad if youd be willing to share your views with us. Please email the Editor at under the subject CENSUS PROPAGANDA with your full name, address, postcode, country and give him permission to publish your views in the next Census eNEWS.
SOME LITTLE KNOWN FACTS FOR MPs
1. THE 30-YEAR TRANSFER LAW When public records [like census records] are 30 years old, the Public Records Act 1958 s. 3[4] requires that they shall be transferred to the Public Record Office for safe keeping unless there are VERY special administrative reasons for keeping them in their original departments.
2. WHY IS THE 1911 CENSUS CLOSED? The 1911 census records have already been transferred to the Public Record Office and they occupy 2.6 miles of shelf space. It seems that they could have been released for public inspection shortly after the Public Records Act 1958 became law. In 2001, Robin Corbett MP, Chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, wrote to the Lord Chancellor urging him to release the 1911 Census returns in 2002, a decade ahead of the release currently scheduled. No doubt it will be a matter of concern to many census researchers that two years later - [a] the Lord Chancellor still hasnt comment on Robin Corbetts request and [b] a newly appointed Home Affairs Committee, under a different chairman, ex-minister Chris Mullin MP, hasnt pressed Lord Irvine to comment.
3.CLOSING CENSUSES FOR 100 YEARS In the mid-1960s, someone [probably the head of the Public Record Office] seems to have advised the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, that he should use his legal powers to prevent public inspection of census records for 100 years, to avoid unnecessary expenditure on micro-filming and additional building costs at the PRO.
4. THE GOVERNMENT IS SECRETLY LOCKING-UP CENSUSES FOR RENEWABLE 10 YEAR PERIODS During the past 17 years, three UK Lord Chancellors have ensured that no post-1911 decennial population census records for England & Wales have been transferred from the Registrar-Generals Department to the Public Record Office. Between 1985 and the present, the transfer of census records has been lawfully blocked for renewable periods of 10 years by Lord Hailsham, by Lord Mackay and by Lord Irvine three Lord Chancellors.
5. NEARLY 40 YEARS OF PRO PROPAGANDA As a highly successful cover-up story, MPs, the media and the public have been misleadingly told that the UK government has ALWAYS guaranteed that any personal census information will NOT be made available to the public for 100 years. Even the PRO census website for schools has been used to spread that misleading idea amongst school children and teachers. The story is so convincing that weve never seen a newspaper report or a report in any Family History magazines that contradicts it. Even the chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, Chris Mullin MP, seems to have believed that its true!
6. AND THE TRUTH But a government minister has recently revealed to the House of Commons that promises of 100-year closure or 100-year confidentiality were NEVER printed on any UK census papers between 1841 and 1971. We also know that the 1841/1851 censuses for England & Wales were released in 1912, after ONLY 60-70 years of closure and that census records for Scotland were closed for ONLY 80 years in the 1960s and 1970s.
7. A PRO EXPENDITURE PROBLEM The 1841-1971 census records for England & Wales occupy 41,428 feet [or 7.8 miles] of shelf space but theres no room to store ALL the 30-year old post-1911 census records at the Public Record Office. Thats why NONE of the post-1911 census records have been transferred to the PRO. Quite simply, theres insufficient storage room at the PRO.
8. ANOTHER EXPENDITURE PROBLEM Before census records can be released for public inspection, the records need to be copied. Figures supplied by the PRO enable us to estimate that the cost of micro-filming the 1911-1971 census records would be approximately £36m [at 1995 prices]. And the Public Record Office seems unwilling - or unable - to pay for micro-filming those records until theyre 100 years old.
9. THE POPULARITY OF CENSUS RESEARCH Twenty million UK residents are interested in consulting decennial population census documents and other PRO records, according to a MORI survey commissioned for the Public Record Office in January 2002.
SUBSCRIBING to our e-NEWS SERVICE If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to our census e-News service, just send an email to with your full name, address and postcode and either SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE as the subject.
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© 2003 Denis McCready, Editor, Census Access News and UK Census Teacher, Solihull, England Home page: http://home.clara.net/denis.mccready/
Updated: 29 March 2003
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