Further to George Rose’s Act 1812

George Rose had been a treasurer for the Navy but as early as 1809 began drawing up outlines for the introduction of an Act to improve parish registers, following on from the formalisation of forms, introduced by Lord Hardwicke in 1754, for the registration of marriages and putting an end to ‘clandestine’ and illegal marriage. Entry and information of baptism and burials was still haphazard. Rose’s aim was to standarise the registers to enable their use for legal and inheritance purposes. The improved information would lead to improved information on mortality and population and would also be able to be used in the place of a census.

The information required for baptisms was: when born, where born, child’s Christian name, father’s surname, parents’ names, where lived, father’s occupation, where child’s parents born, where parents married.

For burials: when buried, Christian name, surname, where lived, profession, marital status, where born, when died.

This information did fall short of the information contained in registers known as ‘Dade’ registers but even this drew serious opposition from a wide range of quarters. The Act took several years to be finalised coming into force in January 1813 in a much ‘watered down’ version and not meeting many of the criteria which Rose had envisaged.

In December the first meeting of the Family Tree Study Club was held. The theme of the meeting was parish registers and numerous valuable contributions were put forward by members, one of which was Ann Simcock’s information about the background and lead up to George Rose’s Act, which we have included above. If you subscribe to the print or digital issue of Family Tree and enjoy learning or sharing family history knowledge you are very welcome to the club. Just email helen.t@familytree.co.uk to register your interest.