Identity Card

Rod Lipscombe - 12/07/2010

I found this Identity Card in my Mother's belongings after she died, along with my ration book, as rationing only ended on 4th July 1954. With issues of security and threats of looming austerity this object provides a timely link with the not too distant past.

The information that the identity card contained was minimal and by modern standards, not very secure. The first identity cards were introduced in World War 1, as a way of increasing domestic security but were then scrapped soon after. They were reintroduced in 1939 for the same reason and then abolished in 1952.