Catalogue description General Register Office: International Section: Correspondence and Papers

The International Lists of Causes of Death was adopted in the United Kingdom in 1911 and the first manual published was in the same year. Since 1950 the Standard Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries and Causes of Death has been used. The early decennial conferences to revise the International List of Causes of Death maintained an up to date nomenclature by which the cause of death could be classified on an internationally comparable basis. An International Agreement Relating to Statistics of Cause of Death agreeing to compile and publish statistics of cause of death, according to one uniform nomenclature, was signed by the United Kingdom on 19 June 1934. This agreement was superseded by the nomenclature regulations in 1948 and additional regulations in 1956.

The first conference of British Commonwealth statisticians was held in 1920, following the recommendations of the Dominions Royal Commission, its purpose being to secure uniformity, continuity and co-ordination in the collection and compilation of statistical data within the Commonwealth. Further conferences were held in 1935, 1951 and 1965. Conferences of colonial government statisticians were held in 1950 and 1953. Their purpose was to discuss current problems of statisticians in the colonial territories.

The Population Commission Working Party was set up in 1947 under the authority of the Steering Committee on International Organisations. Renamed the Committee on Statistical Relations with International Organisations, its terms of reference are to secure co-ordination between departments in respect of statistical relations with international organisations, other than the European Communities, and to exercise a special responsibility for relations with the United Nations. The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population is a non-governmental organisation of demographers and others interested in population questions. The union organised the World Population Conferences in 1954 and 1965, and held their own conferences in 1935, 1937, 1959, 1961 and 1967.

In order to study the aims and methods of cancer registration, a meeting of European workers was convened in June 1955 by the Danish Cancer Registry under the National Anti-cancer League. In October 1948 a working party of the Public Health Committee of the Western European Union was set up to examine available cancer statistics. The Council of Europe's Public Health Committee was established in 1954 and at present has 21 member states. Its functions are three-fold: to award medical research fellowships, to keep a permanent committee of experts on blood transfusion and immunohaematology and to set up a number of select committees of experts who produce a report on a specific subject in the health field allotted to them. In January 1950 a sub-committee of the Expert Committee on Health Statistics was set up by the World Health Organisation to study problems concerning the registration and statistical presentation of cases of cancer.