[1] The census for England and Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man was stored in London.
[2][3] The 1931 census for England and Wales was destroyed by fire on 19 December 1942, during the Second World War, while in storage, along with a large amount of furniture, at the Office of Works in Hayes, Middlesex.
W. A. Derrick of the General Register Office, who visited the scene of the aftermath, commented in a letter to the Central National Registration Office that "The fire was not occasioned by enemy action and how it achieved such dimensions in a store in which special hydrants had been fitted and said to have been in charge of a fire guard of 6 paid watchers, is a mystery which will need investigation".
[4][5][6] A report the following year mentioned a theory that the fire may have been started by a fire-watch employee's discarded cigarette; no action was taken.
The 1939 register was released into the public domain on a subscription basis in 2015 with some redactions, including details of those still alive being blanked out.