NATURAL-BORN SUBJECTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 40, 15 August 1940, Page 10

NATURAL-BORN SUBJECTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I would be grateful if you could answer the following question for me: What is meant by "natural-born" British subject? If a man is born of naturalised parents, is that man a natural-born British subject? Furthermore, if that birth took place in a foreign country, but if at time of birth the parents were naturalised British subjects, would the person then born be a natural-born British subject?—l am, etc.,

S. McKENZIE.

Under British law the following persons are deemed to be natural-born British subjects:—(a) Any person born within his Majesty's Dominions and allegiance; (b) any person born out of his Majesty's Dominions whose father was born within his Majesty's allegiance, or had received a certificate of naturalisation, or had become a British subject by reason of annexation of territory, or was at the time of the child's birth in the service of the Crown, or his birth was registered as that of a British subject at a British Consulate; (c) any person born on board a British ship, or the child of a British subject born in a place where, by treaty, capitulation, grant, usage, sufferance, or other lawful means, his Majesty exercises jurisdiction over British subjects. It should be noted that the term, "within the allegiance," prevents the acquisition of British nationality by a child born to an enemy father within a British Dominion at the time in the occupation of the enemy, or by a child born to a foreign ambassador or diplomatic agent.