Why I have two birth certificates

I have two birth certificates and as far as I know both are independently legal and valid proof of my birth. The earliest was issued by the British Consulate in Dusseldorf on 22nd November 1954.¹ The later one was issued by the Royal Air Force on 23rd November 1954.² As far as I know the two are independently produced but both from information provided by my father. They are also not included in the main GRO indexes. (If you’ve been having trouble locating me, that is why.) The consular certificate is listed in the “Births, Death and Marriages of British Subjects registered at British Consulates” birth index.³ The R.A.F. certificate is listed in the index to “Births, marriages and deaths of members of the British Army or their families, which took place abroad”.³ So why did it become necessary to set up a special registration system for the armed forces?

Figure 1: Consular Birth Certificate

 

Figure 2: R.A.F. Birth Certificate

There were two types of colonies in the British Empire: plantations and trading.^4,5 Plantation colonies were characterised by mass immigration of British people and culture (the American colonies, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa). Trading colonies were never major targets for migration and only ever had the small British populations needed to control trade (India, Africa, Middle East, S.E. Asia, Hong Kong). In some of these trading colonies internecine warfare and general lawlessness were the cause of major disruption to trade, so the British policed the colonies by setting up military garrisons.⁶ After bad experiences with dedicated garrison regiments (e.g. the Rum Corps in New South Wales) the garrisons were manned by regular units of the British Army who were rotated around the world.^6,7

Traditionally the British Army had allowed a small number of wives to accompany a battalion serving overseas. In return for rations they were expected to wash, sew and cook for the officers and soldiers and accompanied the battalion wherever it went, no matter how remote the location.⁶ For these families the only record of vital events like the birth of their children were the registers kept by the chaplains and the returns they sent in to the government.⁸

Figure 3: Baptismal record for Sarah Jane Rose, 1873⁸

The increasing number of families (particularly in India) led to increasing numbers of children born in remote locations. The decision was made to formalise the registration of children born to army personnel and in 1879 the “Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act” was passed.⁹ This required the armed forces to maintain official registers of births deaths and marriages for army personnel serving overseas, independent of any consular presence. It also recognised the preexisting chaplains’ registers as legal evidence equivalent to civil registration in the United Kingdom. In 1918 this act was officially extended to cover R.A.F. personnel and their families (“The Air Force (Application of Enactments) (No. 2) Order”).¹⁰ 

When I was born Dad was apparently advised to register my birth with the local consulate in Dusseldorf to ensure I was recognised as British by birth. I don’t know how much it cost in total, the stamp duty alone was 8 shillings, a decent amount of money then. The R.A.F. certificate was automatically generated (and free).

As a final note, when my daughter applied for a British passport on the basis of my British birth, these two certificates by themselves were not adequate (together with proof she was my daughter) for her to be issued with a British Passport. We had to send additional documentation proving that my father was a resident of the United Kingdom while serving in the R.A.F. 

Sources

1. Birth certificate of Susan Hilary Commons, born 3 Nov 1954, registered at the British Consulate, Düsseldorf, Germany.
2. Birth certificate of Susan Hilary Commons, born 3 Nov 1954, registered via the Headquarters, 2nd Tactical Air Force, Germany.
3. HM Passport Office, ‘Events recorded in England and Wales and overseas’, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/events-recorded-in-england-wales-and-overseas/events-recorded-in-england-and-wales#events-recorded-abroad, accessed 1 Jan 2021.
4. Aldrich, Robert, and Kirsten McKenzie, eds. The Routledge History of Western Empires. Routledge Handbooks Online, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315879499.
5. Richards, Eric, The Genesis of International Mass Migration The British Case, 1750-1900, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2018.
6. Holmes, Richard, Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750-1914, Harper Collins, UK, 2011, Kobo eBook.
7. State Library New South Wales, ‘From Terra Australis to Australia: The 1808 'Rum' Rebellion’, https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/terra-australis-australia/1808-rum-rebellion, accessed 1 Jan 2021
8. See for example the baptism of Sarah Jane Rose, 2 Oct 1873, British India Office Ecclesiastical Returns from Murree Church, Punjab, www.findmypast.com, accessed 30 Jan 2014.
9. United Kingdom Government, ‘Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Army) Act 1879’, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/42-43/8/contents, accessed 29 Dec 2020.
10. United Kingdom Government, ‘Air Force (Application of Enactments) (No 2) Order 1918’, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksro/1918/548/contents/made, accessed 29 Dec 2020.