Ernie Wise and June Whitfield among celebrities in newly-opened WW2 records

Records revealing what celebrities including comedian Ernie Wise and actor June Whitfield were doing on the eve of the Second World War have now been opened to the public.

The 1939 Register was a survey of the population of Britain that was carried out at the start of the Second World War. It was carried out on 29 September 1939 and records where every civilian in the country was staying that day.

The records for England and Wales are available on Findmypast, Ancestry, TheGenealogist and MyHeritage.

Records in the 1939 Register are typically closed to the public if the individual was born less than 100 years ago and their death has not been registered.

This means that records of famous Brits born in 1925 – who would have been 13 or 14 when the 1939 Register was carried out – were opened to the public at the start of this year.

Among the records which have now been opened on Findmypast is that of Ernie Wise, one half of the beloved comedy duo Morecambe and Wise.

Ernie Wise was born Ernest Wiseman on 27 November 1925 in Leeds. He started performing in working men’s clubs with his father Harry at a young age. At the time of the 1939 Register Ernie, already used to showbusiness, is staying unaccompanied at the home of band leader Jack Hylton in East Preston, Sussex. The following year, Ernie met Eric Morecambe (born John Bartholomew in 1926) while the two were appearing in Hylton’s touring youth talent show Youth Takes a Bow. They soon formed their own comedy duo and were on their way to fame.

Ernie Wise in the 1939 Register

Actor June Whitfield, known for starring in TV comedies including Terry and June, Absolutely Fabulous and Last of the Summer Wine, also appears in the 1939 Register. She is shown living in Bognor Regis, Sussex, with her father John, a telephone engineer, and her mother Bertha.

Tony Hart, familiar to millions for presenting children’s TV art programmes such as Take Hart and Hartbeat alongside animated character Morph, also appears, in a record which shows the impact of the start of the war. Born Norman Antony Hart in Maidstone in Kent, he is listed with other pupils of his school as evacuated to Nutley in Sussex.