1905 Aliens Act
The 1836 Act remained in force until replaced by the 1905 Aliens Act (Aliens Act 1905). This set up a new system of immigration control and registration and placed responsibility for all matters of immigration and nationality with the Home Secretary who had the power to deport immigrants considered to be criminals or paupers. Deportations orders from 1906-1963 are at The National Archives in the series HO 372.

1914
The Aliens Registration Act (Aliens Registration Act 1914) made mandatory the registration of all aliens over the age of 16 with the police and, for the first time in history, the government had some reasonably accurate information concerning migrants in terms of numbers, places of residence, occupations and race. The requirement for aliens to register with the police was renewed by the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 and the The Immigration Act 1971. The legislation gave to the government the power to require such individuals to register with the police giving detailed particulars including name, address, marital status, employment or occupation, including employer's name and address, a photograph, and to pay a registration fee. A registered person was required also to register changes of address, marital status, nationality, and employment or occupation. In return the individual received a police certificate of registration.

No central register of people survive but the series of records from the Metropolitan Police Archives MEPO 35 contains the surviving registration cards for the London area. These represent some thousand cases out of the tens of thousands of migrants resident in London since 1914. Although the cards represent a small sample they do include some notable cases including Joe Coral the book maker MEPO 35/16/1. There appears to be a heavy concentration of cases around the late 1930s, as Germans and East Europeans fled the Nazi persecutions. For example, MEPO 35/29/4 consists of cards for Ernst Freud and his family.

The information provided on the cards includes full name, date of birth, date of arrival into the UK, employment history, address, marital status, details of any children and date of naturalisation with Home Office reference if applicable. The cards usually include at least one photograph. If someone was naturalised then there will be links to naturalisation papers/certificates in HO 144, HO 334 and HO 405. Registers for areas outside London, where they survive, can be found locally either at County Record Offices or in police archives.

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