During the reign of Henry VIII it was decided that a formal system to record locally the important events of a person's life should be introduced. In 1538 his Lord Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, introduced a parochial system of registration based upon baptisms, marriages and burials. It was the duty of the Clergy in each Parish to keep a book recording all these events.
It was not until 1597 that annual returns of the information collected had to be sent to a diocesan registrar, and the same year each parish had to purchase special parchment registers in which to record the details.
In 1666 the "Wool Act" added to the task of recording burials. To secure income from the duty on wool the Law required that all corpses had to be buried in a "woollen shroud" and that an affidavit to this effect had to be completed after each burial.
In March 1754 a Marriage act, known as Lord Hardwicke's Act, came into force. It tightened up on the preliminaries needed before marriage. One area therefore controlled was the marriage of minors, for whom parental or guardian consent was now required. Gretna Green then became famous because runaway marriages illegal in England could still take place in Scotland, and the village was close to the border