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From: "Patricia Corney" <>
Subject: [UK-W&H] Fw: [CCC] Fw: Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 17:00:32 -0500


Hello Listers

This may be of some interest as to what could be happening.

Patricia Corney, BHCD
Quakertown, PA USA


Email scanned in and out by Norton 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon A. Watts
To:
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 12:41 PM
Subject: [CCC] Fw: Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003


Forwarded for your possible interest. Please note that this message
relates to the 1911 Census of ENGLAND and has nothing to do with our
efforts to regain public access to Census Records in CANADA.

Gordon
=================================
----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Census Access News
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 12:21 AM
Subject: Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003

Welcome to Census e-NEWS BROADCAST No.2 - April 2003

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 CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

This is a story that ministers in the Lord Chancellor's 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 doesn't 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
Chancellor's Department. Mr T's 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, you'd think that would be the end of
the matter. But the minister - Rosie Winterton MP, the Parliamentary
Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department - must have known that her
letter was NOT entirely truthful. It's 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 T's MP.

1. The Census Act 1920 wasn't 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 Chancellor's Department.

If you share our concerns about the growth of government census
propaganda, we'd be glad if you'd 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 hasn
't comment on Robin Corbett's request and [b] a newly appointed Home
Affairs Committee, under a different chairman, ex-minister Chris Mullin
MP, hasn't 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-General's
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
rvine - 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 we've 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 it's 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 there's no
room to store ALL the 30-year old post-1911 census records at the Public
Record Office. That's why NONE of the post-1911 census records have been
transferred to the PRO. Quite simply, there's 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 they're 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.

© 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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