History of UK Number plates

Before 1932

The first series of number plates were issued in 1903 and ran until 1932, consisting of a one- or two-letter code followed by a sequence number from 1 to 9999. The code indicated the local authority in whose area the vehicle was registered. In England and Wales, these were initially allocated in order of population size (by the 1901 census) - thus A indicated London, B indicated Lancashire, C indicated the West Riding of Yorkshire and so on up to Y indicating Somerset, then AA indicated Hampshire, AB indicated Worcestershire and so on up to FP indicating Rutland.

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The letters G, S and V were initially restricted to Scotland, and the letters I and Z to Ireland. In both cases, allocations of codes were made in alphabetical order of counties, followed by county boroughs - thus in Scotland, Aberdeenshire was allocated SA, Argyll received SB and so on, while in Ireland Antrim was allocated IA, Armagh received IB, and so on.

When a licensing authority reached 9999, it was allocated another two-letter code, but there was no pattern to these subsequent allocations as they were allocated on a first come first served basis. London and Middlesex quickly took most codes with L and M as the first letter respectively, while Surrey, initially allocated P, took many codes beginning with that letter.

By 1932, the available codes were running out, and an extended scheme was introduced. This scheme placed a serial letter before the code, and had the sequence number run only to 999, thus restricting the number of characters in a registration to six. The first area to issue such marks was Staffordshire in July 1932 with ARF 1 etc., and all other areas in England and Wales, plus most areas in Scotland, followed suit once they had issued all their two-letter registrations.

I, Q, and Z were not used as serial letters, as the use of I and Z continued to be restricted to Ireland and Q was reserved for temporary imports, while the single-letter codes were left out of this scheme as a serial letter would have created a duplicate of an existing two-letter code. (The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland later adopted this scheme in their own ways, and the latter still uses it.)

In some areas, the available marks within this scheme started to run out in the 1950s, and in those areas, what became known as "reversed" registrations - the letters coming after the numbers - were introduced. Staffordshire was again the first area to issue such registrations, starting with 1000 E in 1953. In most cases, the three-letter combinations (e.g. 1 AHX for Middlesex) would be issued first, while in later years some areas started with the one- and two-letter combinations and others issued all three at the same time. The ever-increasing popularity of the car meant that by the beginning of the 1960s, these registrations were also running out. Often number plates were on hinges, as petrol tank caps were located under the number plates on some cars.

Some three-letter combinations were not authorised for licensing use as they were deemed offensive or politically incorrect. These included ARS, BUM, GOD, JEW, SEX, SOD and UBF.