COMPLETENESS OF REGISTRATION

Carefully derived estimates of the completeness of registration in the Australian colonies are difficult to obtain. A suite of demographic methods, commonly known as ‘death distribution methods’, attempt to estimate the proportion of deaths which are collected and counted by civil registration systems (Murray et al., 2010).

One of the most widely used of these, the Generalised Growth Balance method, relies on a mathematical relationship to balance birth rates, growth rates and death rates. It requires as inputs the age distribution of population from two censuses and the deaths registered between the two censuses by age. The attempt to balance these involves the estimation of the completion of registration, and results in a correction factor which is used to obtain adjusted mortality levels.

A recent variation of the Generalised Growth Balance method also adjusts for populations that are affected by migration (Bhat, 2002). Migration levels in nineteenth-century Australia were high, and so the Bhat method could assist in assessing the completeness of registration in these populations. It is, however, very sensitive to the accuracy of the population counts in the two censuses, and to errors in the age distribution of deaths (ABS, 2008b; Barnes et al., 2008). Since this work relies on populations derived from problematic census counts with fluctuating migration levels (Hayter, 1893), the method was judged unsuitable. Instead, more direct observations provide the evidence for assessing the completeness of registration.

By all accounts, the Registrars General believed that registration was quickly established throughout their jurisdictions with substantial, although not complete coverage. The early years produced the sort of problems that necessarily accompany the introduction of new rules and regulations. People were unaware or unfamiliar with the new requirements, and needed time to acquaint themselves with systems requesting that they divulge personal and intimate details.

Some wondered what ‘the public good’ or the statistical value of the information might be, and under whose authority details on the domestic history of their family were being collected. The print media carried public debates on the new regulations. The more strident views insisted that it was just ‘not correct’ to ask these questions of the recently bereaved; they were ‘inquisitorial’, ‘offensive’ and ‘puerile’, and an ‘insult to the whole community’ (SMH, 30 Oct 1856, p.3; 3 Nov. 1856, p.8; 30 Sep. 1857, p.5).

Some refused outright to register births and deaths, although these cases were rare; ‘… few are believed wilfully to neglect the Registration of Birth or Death, although some, particularly among foreigners, do so from ignorance’ (QldRG, 1861).

In certain regions, a lack of zealousness not on the part of those being registered, but of the District Registrars called into question the completeness of records, as New South Wales Registrar-General Christopher Rolleston pointed out,

‘The Districts of Tamworth, Carcoar, and Wagga Wagga, are the only districts in which I have had reason to be dissatisfied with the progress of the system. The Clerks of Petty Sessions have had charge of these districts; and I have reason to believe that the law has been allowed to remain almost inoperative in their hands’ (NSWRG, 1857).

Generally, however, the early reports of the Registrars give the impression that there was little active resistance to the new arrangements, and that most of the problems surrounding the completeness of registration related to two areas: under-registration of deaths in remote areas, and the under-registration of infant deaths.

Under-registration in remote areas

In remote areas, people had trouble accessing Registrars. F. O. Darvall, the Queensland Registrar-General, reported the observations of one of his assistants,

‘When it is considered that this is a Pastoral District, that many of the persons at sheep stations have no communication with the towns for months, or with the

head stations for weeks, that fully one-third of the labouring class are German or Chinese, and that in most instances the information is necessarily transmitted through the superintendent or proprietor, it will appear quite possible that many Births and Deaths occur which I never hear of’ (QldRG, 1861).

A similar situation existed in South Australia, where

‘It must be premised that these returns do not exhibit the exact and accurate numbers under each respective head of enumeration, but si mply the number registered. In some of the outlying districts the difficulty connected with registration is considerable, and we fear that many omissions obtain in consequence’ (SAA, 18 Apr. 1859, p.4).

Around 800 apparently unregistered deaths occurring in South Australia between 1842 and 1906 have been identified, the details of which have been made available for genealogical research (Jaunay, 2004). Over the same period, approximately 183,000 deaths were registered in South Australia, so these 800 deaths found to date represent less than one half of one percent of the total. From 1891, G. H. Ayliffe, the Registrar-General in South Australia, began reporting on deaths in the area that would become the Northern Territory. The population in the Territory at this time numbered slightly more than 5,000 people, ‘about 1,550 were Europeans by birth or parentage. The remainder were Asiatics, very nearly all of them being Chinese’ (SARG, 1891). Exclusive of Aboriginal people, registered deaths in the Northern Territory between 1891 and 1906 never exceeded 100 per annum. These deaths are excluded from this work.

E. S. Norman Campbell, the Victorian Registrar, commented on the chaotic situation that existed on the goldfields,

‘These difficulties arose…partly from the peculiar circumstances in which the Colony was placed, with its population either congregated in large masses on the Gold Fields and in a few large towns, or thinly scattered over a vast surface, almost devoid of roads or of the machinery for diffusing the system into the rural and more remote districts …It is my impression, however, that these latter figures represent but imperfectly the mortality that has taken place, especially on or about the gold fields, as it is difficult to overtake the instances of interments which have occurred in private burial places’ (Campbell, 1855a).

The establishment of public cemeteries throughout the colony, and increased numbers of Deputy Registrars helped to deal with the problem in Victoria, so that Campbell could say in his next report that they ‘have greatly diminished the probability that cases of mortality can, to any great extent, have escaped being registered’ (VicRG, 1856).

By 1853, registration had been operating in Tasmania for more than a decade. Registrar John Abbott was confident enough to state that he believed registration to be complete, due to the ‘liability of the Clergy to a fine in the event of their burying without a Certificate’ (Kippen, 2002a). The requirement that a certificate be supplied before burial could take place, along with the penalties imposed on households for non-compliance helped undergird Abbott’s confidence.

Victorian statistician H. H. Hayter also believed that ‘The deaths which escape registration must necessarily be few, as in all colonies it is illegal to bury a corpse until the death has been registered, and there is every reason to believe that this law is not evaded’ (Hayter, 1893).

Under-registration of infant deaths

Infant deaths are the second major area believed to be characterised by under- registration, especially in the years immediately following the establishment of civil registration. Here, techniques exist to quantify the level of deficiency. Variation in infant mortality rates—the number of deaths of children less than one year of age per 1,000 live births—and the quality of registration data can be assessed using the biometric techniques developed by French demographer Jean Bourgeois-Pichat (1951) (see Appendix 1).

Kippen (2002a) used the Bourgeois-Pichat transformation to demonstrate that infant deaths in colonial Tasmania were under-registered relative to the number of births. Although under-registration existed in Tasmania between 1840 and 1899, the estimates of endogenous mortality, which fluctuated between 21 and 25 deaths per 1,000 live births, was not excessive (Wrigley, 1977; Galley & Woods, 1999).

Figure 3.3: Bourgeois-Pichat biometric analysis of infant mortality, Western Australia, 1870–79

The Western Australian historical indexes also have the information required for calculating the Bourgeois-Pichat transformation; annual births and infant deaths classified by age in days. Infant mortality for the period 1870–79 was 118 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the estimated endogenous mortality was 31 deaths per 1,000 live births (Figure 3.3). This indicates a level of under- registration of deaths relative to births greater than in Tasmania, however the fitted curve is relatively straight, and the figure of 31 is not overly excessive. There is also enough detailed data on age at death in the Victorian abstracts of mortality to calculate Bourgeois-Pichat transformations. Registrar-General Archer began publishing numbers of infant deaths in the abstracts of mortality for ages ‘Under 1 month, 1 to 3 months, 3 to 6 months and 6 to 12 months’ from 1867 onwards.

Endogenous infant mortality in Victoria fell from 26 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1870–79 to 21 in 1900–06 (Figure 3.4). The fitted curves display some concavity but again suggest that the data are not seriously misleading. Wrigley’s value of 21 deaths per 1,000 live births for England and Wales in 1905 is similar to that in Victoria, and also ‘suggest that endogenous mortality was

y = 0.0144x2_{+ 4.9574x + 30.613} R² = 0.9987 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Cu m u la ti ve m o rta lit y ra te p e r 1 0 0 0 li ve b irth s