Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1854 (17 and 18 Vict. cap. 80), sec. 55, enacts—[ quoted in rubric].

James Crawfurd Dunlop, M.D., F.R.C.P., Ed., Registrar-General for Scotland, presented a petition to the Court (Second Division) the narrative of which was as follows:—“That the following cases of mutilation, partial destruction, and illegibility and loss of registers have been brought under the petitioner's notice:—1. District of Wood-side, Aberdeen.—That Mr Alexander Massie Hendry, who for twenty-five years had been registrar of births, deaths, and marriages for the district of Woodside in the burgh of Aberdeen, died on 7th June 1911, and after his death his son Mr William Alexander Hendry, who on 14th June 1905 had been appointed assistant registrar of Woodside and became interim registrar thereof on 10th June 1911, handed to the now deceased Mr George Tulloch Bisset Smith, District Examiner of Registers, on 19th June 1911 a holograph statement by the said Alexander Massie Hendry, dated 24th August 1905. That statement was contained in an envelope backed ‘A. M. Hendry,’ and this envelope is understood to have been left by him in the hands of his solicitor, who produced it after his death. The import of the statement is that the registrar had then recently discovered that certain of the duplicate register books under his charge had been tampered with by some person or persons unknown to him, leaves having been torn from certain register books, each of which leaves contained an entry relating to a member of Mr Alexander Massie Hendry's family; that he had obtained copies of all the entries, inscribed them on fresh pages, and pasted such pages into the duplicate register books; that the register books then contained a complete register of all the entries as they originally stood; that he could not account for the register books being tampered with, but surmised that a housekeeper formerly in his employment, who had been dismissed for intemperate habits, had done so from motives of revenge, and he suggested that the occurrence had probably taken place seven years before the date of his statement. The said District Examiner immediately after receiving the said statement inquired into the facts, and submitted to the Registrar-General of the day a tabulated statement showing details as to the leaves of the registers which had been abstracted and the leaves substituted for those taken away. From such statement it would appear that in all twelve leaves had been abstracted and eleven leaves had been substituted, the substituted leaves in each case having been taken from among the unused leaves of the several register books themselves. The difference of one leaf is explained by the fact that upon one of the abstracted leaves of the marriage register there appeared no entries. On each leaf abstracted there was an entry relating to the Hendry family, as is noted in the tabulated statement. In all six duplicate register books were so mutilated, and on 1st July 1911 these were transmitted by the said District Examiner to the Registrar-General, in whose custody they still are. The entries in the substituted leaves differ from the entries in the corresponding leaves in the duplicate registers in the custody of the Registrar-General. On 29th July 1911 the Registrar-General reported the mutilation of the registers to the Crown Agent but no prosecution followed. … 2. Parish of Glasserton, Wigtownshire.—That by letter dated 19th October 1914 to the Regis—trar-General Mr James Lambert, registrar of births, deaths, and marriages for the parish of Glasserton in the county of Wigtown, reported that on taking over from his predecessor in office the custody of the registers of that parish on his appointment he had discovered that the duplicate register of deaths for the year 1855 was so dilapidated from damp, &c., as to be of no use as a record. It had been so injured by damp as to become wholly illegible, and Mr John W. C. Fyfe, the District Examiner of Registers, on 24th October 1914 transmitted what remained of the volume to the Registrar-General.… 3. Parish of St Monance, Fife-shire.—That the duplicate register of births pertaining to the parish of St Monance in the county of Fife for the year 1880, which had been transmitted to the General Registry Office in Edinburgh after collation and examination by the District Examiner of Registers in terms of the 3rd section of the Registration of Births, &c. (Scotland) Amendment Act 1855 (18 Vict. cap. 29), has gone amissing in the depository in which such registers are usually preserved in the General Registry Office, and that although careful and minute search has been made on repeated occasions for the missing volume since its disappearance was discovered some years ago no trace of it has been found….” The petitioner prayed the Court to appoint the petition to be intimated on the walls and in the minute-book in common form, and thereafter on “being satisfied of the accuracy of the statements made in the petition in regard to the mutilation, partial destruction, and illegibility and loss of the several registers before referred to ( a) in the case of the said district of Woodside, Aberdeen, to order that a new duplicate of each of the said leaves mutilated as aforesaid be made at the sight of the petitioner from the

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duplicate registers in his custody, and to direct that each of the said new duplicate leaves be authenticated by the signature of the petitioner and incorporated in the register books, and to declare that when so authenticated and incorporated the same shall thereupon become in all respects of the same force and validity as the originals; (6) in the case of the said parish of Glasserton, to order that a new duplicate register of deaths for the year 1855 be prepared at the sight of the petitioner from the duplicate register in his custody, and to direct that the same be authenticated by the signature of the petitioner, and to declare that when so authenticated it shall there-upon become in all respects of the same force and validity as the original register; and ( c) in the case of the said parish of St Monance, to order that a new duplicate register of births for the year 1880 be prepared at the sight of the petitioner from the duplicate register in the custody of the local registrar of the said parish of St Monance, and to direct that such new register so prepared shall be authenticated by the signature of the petitioner, and to declare that when so authenticated the same shall thereupon become in all respects of the same force and validity as the original register, or to do further or otherwise in the premises as to your Lordships shall seem proper.”

On 18th January 1923 the Court pronounced this interlocutor—“The Lords allow the petition to be presented in typewriting form, and appoint same to be intimated on the walls and in the minute book in common form: Allow all persons having or claiming interest to lodge answers if so advised within eight days after such intimation.”