Registering a birth in UK

[Mutley]

I think the original 'Old Age Pension' was introduced in 1909 for those reaching 70 years old.

Their birth should have been registered in about 1839 and we know that there are many that we cannot find in those early years.
What happened if a person applied for a state pension but did not seem to have a birth registered and could not provide proof of age?

Would it have then been registered in 1909?

[Elwyn Soutter]

For old age pension applications, if you couldn’t prove your age by a birth certificate you were asked for other evidence, eg a baptismal certificate. Some military records were also acceptable (as they would normally have your age – however accurate – somewhere on them). In Ireland (where birth certs only start in 1864) there was also a formal system for checking the 1851 and sometimes the 1841 censuses to see whether the age you claimed to be now matched that given then. Don’t know if they did that in GB too.

Originally the old age pension was means tested, and you had to be of “good character”, so these two requirements disqualified some applicants. In 1909 it was 5/- (25p) which was about a fifth of an average persons wage. About the same ratio as today.

[Peter Goodey]

Off at another tangent...

Anyone interested in their ancestors' old age pensions may want to note that applications were actually dealt with by local pension committees. Records, including decisions on individual cases, may be found in County Record Offices.

[Jan1954]

Off at another tangent...

Anyone interested in their ancestors' old age pensions may want to note that applications were actually dealt with by local pension committees. Records, including decisions on individual cases, may be found in County Record Offices.

Thank you for that, Peter. It is an avenue that I had not considered following and should certainly help in tracking down an elusive great, great grandmother.

[Coromandel]

Anyone interested in their ancestors' old age pensions may want to note that applications were actually dealt with by local pension committees. Records, including decisions on individual cases, may be found in County Record Offices.

See this earlier thread for some examples. Survival of records seems very patchy.