People at work

Many trades and professions have been regulated by government with legislation passed by Parliament over the centuries. Some occupations were licensed and regulated locally and records can be found in county record offices, others were regulated nationally and records may survive in The National Archives.

This gallery consists of a selection of occupations regulated or otherwise controlled by government whose records survive in The National Archives. These include records of the Coastguard, Customs, Excise and Inland Revenue including establishment and staff lists. There are records of the registration of merchant seamen, certificates of service and competency for masters and mates of ships, and agreements and crew lists of vessels. The former British Transport Historical Records Collection of pre-nationalisation railway companies, including records of railway company workers can be consulted here.

The National Archives also holds the records of the Metropolitan Police and the Royal Irish Constabulary, but not records of local county and borough police forces which will be held in local record offices. The registers of State Registered Nurses from 1921 and State Enrolled Nurses from 1944 are available here, as is the surviving index of those women who served in the Land Army during the Second World War.

The sections in this gallery refer you to those series of records that relate to occupations and professions other than service in the armed forces of the Crown.