The arrival of the first factory inspectorate in 1834 was accompanied by new requirements to assess the ages and physical conditions of factory children. The main provisions of the 1833 Factory Act excluded children below nine from factory work and limited those aged nine to twelve to forty-eight hours per week. When the inspectors took up their positions, however, they soon discovered that the age clauses of the Act were largely inoperable because there existed no reliable documentary means of verifying the ages of child applicants for factory work. Evidence from parish registers was often unreliable because the gap between birth and baptism could vary widely. Civil registration, moreover, did not commence in England and Wales until 1838 which meant that the earliest date from which a nine-year-old applicant could provide any reliable documentary proof of a date of birth for the purposes of the factory acts was 1846. In Scotland, meanwhile, legislation requiring formal registration was not enacted until 1854 and the age limitations of the Act could not practically be enforced until the mid-1860s. The earliest civil registers also frequently contained fewer personal details than parish registers. Spaces were reserved for the insertion of a child's baptismal name but these were often left blank. Registers also suffered from fictitious entries by registrars themselves as they were being paid by the entry.