Abstract
Medicine, law and public policy intersect in the history of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), and nowhere more so than in the career of Dr James Crauford Dunlop. From his appointment as Medical Superintendent of Statistics in 1909 to his retirement from the post of Registrar General in 1930, his career spanned a significant period of expansion of the boundaries of the British information state. Prominent concerns in England during these decades were eugenics, declining fertility, and population health. However, these concerns were notably absent in Scotland, where the GROS was concerned principally to protect the individual from increasingly intrusive state surveillance. Dunlop’s appointment was particularly significant because he was the first medical man appointed as Registrar General for Scotland, a post normally held by barristers. This chapter explores whether his appointment marks a transition within the vital statistics of Scotland from a legal to a medical framework.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Medicine, Law and Public Policy in Scotland, c.1850-1990 |
Subtitle of host publication | Essays Presented to Anne Crowther |
Editors | Mark Freeman, Eleanor Gordon, Krista Maglen |
Publisher | Edinburgh University Press |
Chapter | 6 |
Pages | 105-124 |
Number of pages | 20 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781474406222 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781845861162 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 Mar 2011 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- civil registration
- Scotland
- General Register Office for Scotland
- medical statistics