Details of civil registration districts within Kent
Medway
The Medway branch catchment area for projects is centred on the Medway towns and extends west to Gravesend, east to Sittingbourne and Sheppey, south to approximately the M2/A2 and north to the the natural boundary of the River Thames. This neatly fits with the eastern half of the Rochester Archdeanery area for which the parish registers are available on CityArk. The western part of the Archdeanery is within the North West Kent Family History Society area.
When civil registration began in 1837 the Registration Districts were based on the Poor-law Unions created in 1834. Over the years there have been many boundary changes as the structure of local government developed. Until the 1830s *the parish* was the most important body, dealing with all sorts of things but mostly with caring for their own poor.
By then the industrial revolution had truly got underway and we were changing from a rural pastoral nation into a manufacturing one and the introduction of Union workhouses and civil registration was a huge change. As people became more aware of the need for clean drinking water and removal of sewage those Unions / registration districts in many cases became Urban or Rural Sanitary Districts; USD or RSD seen after addresses on certificates 1875-1894. Then in boroughs/larger towns the sanitary authority was merged into the corporation and all other urban sanitary districts were renamed as urban districts, governed by an urban district council (UD on certificates) and rural sanitary districts were replaced by rural districts (RD on certificates); which for the first time gave country people a directly elected council. District councils had remit to deal with things like council housing, street lighting, parks and cemeteries.
A higher tier of local government was introduced in 1888 with the creation of County councils, originally as modernisation of the justice system, they were elected bodies to administer the county court Quarter Sessions but gradually education, highways and social services were added to the remit. In the larger city areas Unitary Authorities took on duties of both Urban District and County Council.
This lasted until 1974 when Urban and Rural District councils were abolished and each county was divided into District councils which had a mix of urban and rural areas. In Kent the districts are: Ashford, Canterbury, Dartford, Dover, Gravesham, Maidstone, Sevenoaks, Shepway, Swale, and Thanet plus Medway which became a Unitiary Authority in 1998.
