The Wartime System of National Registration

Abstract

This chapter details the thinking of those who designed the British wartime National Register and shows how from its inception they wanted the register to become a permanent feature of British society. It focuses on the ways they imagined the people could be obliged to provide updates of their address every time they moved. It surveys how registration was introduced, its workings and the problems it encountered and then presents both contemporary criticisms of the system and the authority’s responses. It concludes by showing how, as the war approached its end, the registration authorities thought the British could become habituated to permanent registration demonstrating how closely this thinking compares to that of Foucault’s analysis of the panoptic nature of modern power.