Scottish Way of Birth and Death

Detailed Research

The authors of this website have produced more detailed work on certain aspects of the history of registration in Scotland, and this page offers copies of some of these works and links to others.  It will be added to from time to time.  To access these papers, click on the underlined sections.

1.  For a full report of papers delivered at a symposium on the comparative history of registration in Scotland and England, see 'Birth pains and death throes: the creation of vital statistics in Scotland and England'. A symposium supported by the Wellcome Trust, arising from the 'Scottish Way of Birth and Death' Project, Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Glasgow, 2004.

2.  On the old parish registers

Cameron, A.,  'The fate of the old parish registers under the Registration Act of 1854', Scottish Archives 14 (2008).  This is a pdf file of the unedited typescript of this paper.

3.  On the making of the Registration Act of 1854

Cameron, A., 'The Establishment of Civil Registration in Scotland', The Historical Journal, 50.2 (2007), pp.377-395. 

This article is available online in PubMed

Cameron, A., 'Medicine, Meteorology and Vital Statistics: the Influence of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Upon Scottish Civil Registration, c.1840-1855',  The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 37.2 (2007), pp.173-180 (open access online journal).

4.  On the practical workings of registration

Crowther, A. and Cameron, A., 'Civil Registration: The Law and the Individual in Scotland Since 1854', in M.A. Mulhern, ed., Scottish Life and Society: The Law. A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology Volume 13 (Edinburgh, 2012), pp.655-671.

5.  On English and Scottish debates over death registration

Crowther, A., 'By death divided. C19th Scottish & English approaches to death certification'

6.  On the registrars and the Registrar General

Cameron, A., 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Local Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Scotland', in M. Freeman, E. Gordon and K. Maglen, eds, Medicine, Law and Public Policy in Scotland c.1850-1990: Essays Presented to Anne Crowther (Dundee, 2011), pp.87-104.

Davis, G. and Elliot, R., 'Public Information, Private Lives: Dr James Craufurd Dunlop and the Collection of Vital Statistics in Scotland, 1904-1930', in M. Freeman, E. Gordon and K. Maglen, eds, Medicine, Law and Public Policy in Scotland c.1850-1990: Essays Presented to Anne Crowther (Dundee, 2011), pp.105-214.

7.  On War and National Registration

Elliot, R., 'An Early Experiment in National Identity Cards: the Battle Over Registration in the First World War', Twentieth Century British History, 17.2 (2006), pp.145-176.

This article is available online in PubMed

8.  On issues surrounding medical certification of deaths

Davis, G.,    '"Dead man knocking"  - issues surrounding medical certification of death in Scotland, c.1893-1960'.

Davis, G., 'Stillbirth registration and perceptions of infant death, 1900-60: the Scottish case in national context', Economic History Review, 62.3 (August 2009), pp 629-654).  This article will shortly be available in PubMed

9.  Index to the textual section of the annual reports of the Registrar General for Scotland, 1856-1939

An index to the textual section of the annual reports was compiled by Francesc Marischal for the project.  It may be of assistance to those consulting the reports for their own research, and is available for download in a zipped MS ACCESS file here.  It is accompanied by a zipped Word file of a handbook explaining the construction and use of the database.  You will need to save the file to your computer and open it with a zip programme, such as the freeware available from ZipCentral: Detailed annual reports database