Identifying the English: A History of Personal Identification 1500 to the PresentPersonal identification is very much a live political issue in Britain and this book looks at why this is the case, and why, paradoxically, the theft of identity has become ever more common as the means of identification have multiplied. Identifying the English looks not only at how criminals have been identified - branding, fingerprinting, DNA - but also at the identification of the individual with seals and signatures, of the citizen by means of passports and ID cards, and of the corpse. Beginning his history in the medieval period, Edward Higgs reveals how it was not the Industrial Revolution that brought the most radical changes in identification techniques, as many have assumed, but rather the changing nature of the State and commerce, and their relationship with citizens and customers. In the twentieth century the very different historical techniques have converged on the holding of information on databases, and increasingly on biometrics, and the multiplication of these external databases outside the control of individuals has continued to undermine personal identity security. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Three Rogues | 17 |
3 Early Modern England a FacetoFace Society? | 39 |
4 Identifying the Great and the Good in Early Modern England | 49 |
5 Identifying the Poor Citizen and the Deviant in Early Modern England | 79 |
6 Identifi cation in the First Industrial Nation 17501850 | 97 |
Identifying Deviants in England 1850 to 1970 | 121 |
Identifying Citizens and Customers in England 1850 to 1970 | 143 |
Other editions - View all
Identifying the English: A History of Personal Identification 1500 to the ... Edward Higgs No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
Accessed aliens already noted bank BBC News website Bertillon biometrics birth body Britain British Parliamentary Papers Cambridge University Press Caplan and John cent certificates citizens civil registration claimed Committee consumer Coroners court credit card crime customers death deviant DNA database DNA profiling early modern England early modern period Edward Higgs electoral England English Equifax example Experian fingerprinting Forensic Science forms of identification Francis Francis Galton fraud Galton Groebner Henry Henry Faulds heraldic Hindle History Home Office Ibid ID cards identity cards imposture Industrial Revolution inquest Jane Caplan John Stonehouse juridical person London marriage medieval Metropolitan Police migration mobility National Archives National Registration nineteenth century Oxford parish passport Pensions Perkin Warbeck personal identification photographs political Poor Law population records Registered Files Report seals signature social Society Surveillance tattoo techniques technologies Tichborne Claimant tion twentieth century United Kingdom Victorian workhouse