Catalogue description Home Office: Commonwealth Immigration (BSI and CWI Symbol Series) Files

The papers in this series are arranged in numerical order by departmental file number. The date preceding the BSI or CWI reference in the former reference column eg. BSI (61) indicates those files were originally registered as BSI (61) 1/2/8 or BSI (61) 1/2/25 etc, meaning that they were created in 1961. Unfortunately the system was not used properly and some files in both the BSI and CWI series were in fact created in later years than that indicated, eg. CWI (62) 468/20/9 was created in 1966.

The following Home Office certificate numbers were unused: R1 126245-138499. Users might expect to find them between the current references HO 334/1438 and HO 334/1439 for 1969.

The British Nationality Act 1948 confirmed the right of citizens of the Commonwealth, together with the Colonies and the Republic of Ireland, to settle without any restriction in the United Kingdom. Up until 1962 the Home Office Divisions responsible for this work were B1, B2 and A2. In 1962 the Commonwealth Immigration Act introduced the first legislation to limit the right of the above groups to settle in the United Kingdom. Alongside additional immigration controls at the ports, a new Home Office Division, B3, was formed in 1962 to process difficult cases, apply deportation procedures, and decide policy under the 1962 Act and subsequent legislation (leaving B1 and B2 to deal with the control of Aliens). Applications for naturalization continued as before 1962 to be processed by the renamed A2 Division, which became B4 in 1962 (see HO 213 for the Nationality (NTY) file series). Further restrictions followed in the 1965 and 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Acts. Commonwealth and alien immigration legislation were merged under The Immigration Act 1971. The functions of B3 Division were combined with B1 in 1984.