Death Certificates Gallery

The history behind the death certificate.

The Civil Registration Act of 1837 was intended and brought in to register all birth, marriage, and death records in England and Wales. Prior to that, it was just on a local parish record level. So baptisms, marriages, and burials were recorded in the local church. But from 1837, it was a national responsibility to record the records with the local government official, the registrar, in a register that he maintained.

After 1837, people had to go and find the registrar. The registrar’s position was not necessarily a specific job in the community. He might have been the local farmer. Could have been the postman. Anybody like that. So you would have had to have wandered around to find the registrar to record your event.

This was the case between 1837 and 1874 when an amendment to the act meant that the registrar now had to have a specified building, whether it’s his home, his work, and a specified time when he was available to register the events.

As you will see from the flipbooks below, the death certificates were issued originally in portrait orientation but in more recent years changed to landscape. A death must be registered in England and Wales within 5 working days (8 in Scotland) and can now be done online. Certificates will be issued after registration and can then be used to arrange funerals and burials as well as the many other consequences that a death brings.

Records are now stored at the General Register Office (GRO) in Southport and can be obtained from there through the government website.