Frequently Asked Questions

The first page of each year has been numbered 1. This numbering sequence runs right through until the last page published in the year. The strength of this facility is that if you have a year and a page number then you have a unique pointer to the information you require. The only Gazettes, apart from very old issues, for which this rule doesn't apply are the London Gazette Company Law Supplements and Premium Bond Unclaimed Prizes Supplements.

Much of the miltary, honours and awards data appears in supplements and these were regarded as published on a specified date as a supplement to a previous Gazette. It is often the date of the Gazette rather than the date of the supplement that is picked up by the search tool.

For example, a supplement to the Gazette of the 9th March 1948 could have been published on the 13th March 1948.

If you have a medal card or other date then it probably refers to the publication date so leave that little excess time in your searches.

The ranges reflect the timing in which events and there results appear in the Gazettes and not the timing of the actual event. This may reflect delays in the timing of news reaching the United Kingdom or it may simply be that military awards were announced after the event.

For example, the pre-set date range for World War I is 28th June 1914 to 31st December 1920 as many awards were announced after the armstice to celebrate brave deeds, victory and participation.

Click on this icon and a search box will open up which you can use to to find and highlight the keyword on the page.

The Company Law Official Notifications Supplement in which this information appears was until June 2006 published only on microfiche and does not appear on this site. Recent copies however can be found online.

Copies of the microfiche can be obtained from 0870 600 55 22. You will need to know the date of the publication that you require. Please make it clear that you need the microfiche supplement.

If the results at the top are not those that you require then take a look at some of the other FAQs and try to work out how the effectiveness of the search can be improved.

It could be:

Keywords can be entered in either upper or lower cases.

What date or within what time period would the entry have been?

• Is there an issue number?
• Is there a page number?
• What is the full name of the company or individual?
• Are there middle names or alternative spellings?
• Is there a company number or a military service number?
• Is there a particular honour or award cited?
• Would a place name or postcode appear in the notice?

With this information the probability of success can be maximised and the number of results minimised.

The purpose is to enable users to fine tune the number of results that they receive through the addition of search terms which will definitely or might appear in the entry.

For example 'With all the words' will find individual pages (and individual notices for more recent issues) in which these terms are present

For simple searches in effect it is the 'With all the words' box which is used.

There is no restriction to using just one of these boxes in any individual search for example a common surname in the 'With all the words' box can be paired with a particular piece of legislation in the 'With the exact phrase' box.

Be wary that phrases that you might expect such as Victoria Cross may appear on a previous page and will not therefore be associated by the search engine with the entry.

In the "With All the Words Box" type: NoticeCode:1803 (or such other code is appropriate). This can also be used for statistical calculations of the number of notices in a period.

In addition a small number of old documents have not been OCR'd and there fore respond to keyword search. These documents however can be located through searching on their date, issue number and page number.

"Notices" are displayed as part of the page and are only shown for main Gazettes since 1997 (London) and 2002 (Edinburgh & Belfast). "Issues" are pages of the main Gazettes displayed in PDF form which show notices in context. "Supplements" cover Honours and awards, military appointments, striking off/dissolutions, premium bonds and are displayed in PDF form.

If you are not sure whether the information you want is in an issue or a supplement then select "All".

• Internet Explorer 5.0 and above (some visual aspects may not be achievable with older versions)
• Mozilla 1.7 and above (including Firefox 1.0 and above)
• Opera 9 and above
• Safari 1.3 and above

The Edinburgh Gazette is published each Tuesday and Friday (excluding bank holidays). Notices should be submitted by 9.30am the working day prior to publication.

The Belfast Gazette is published each Friday (excluding bank holidays). Notices should be submitted by 15.00 hours the working day prior of publication.

If you need a notice to appear in all three publications on the same day then you should therefore plan to advertise it on a Friday.

Printed copies are also available at this time.

• Archive users can save searches to return to them on later occasions
• Regular users of recent Gazettes can automatically view the notice types of interest to them
• Registrants can elect to receive occasional emailed information updates

Data from within ten most recent issues (including supplements) can be browsed in the Browse Notices function.

Taking into the account the regularity of publication this is typically equivalent to:

• Just over a week of London Gazettes
• Just over two weeks of Edinburgh Gazettes
• One month of Belfast Gazettes.

• Change of name by Deed Poll (Personal Legal)
• Deceased estates/Trustee Act (Personal legal)
• Pollution Prevention and Control (Environment – Environmental Protection)
• Pipeline related notices (Planning)
• Company Dissolution and Restoration (Companies and Financial – Company Documents)
• Honours (State)

There are navigation buttons in the dark area at the top of the screen, each provides a function:

• Move to the first page
• Move backward one page
• Move forward one page
• Move to the last page
• Select any page by number

If you are looking for a specific word or phrase then use the binoculars icon which appear in the upper left part of the screen to search within the page itself.

For more information please see the Frequently Asked Questions on Registration.

This takes users to a screen entitled ‘Save Your Search’ on which is displayed the specifications of the search (for example the keywords, the dates, page or issue numbers) and the opportunity to name the search.

We suggest that the search is named as something that you will easily recognise in the future.

Click the blue button on the bottom right hand side of the screen labelled ‘Save Search’.

Continue to look through the results or leave the site.

The next time that you log in to the website and go to the ‘Advanced Search’ screen you will see that the ‘Saved Searches’ drop down in the middle of the screen includes your saved search.

Just select the saved search you require, click on the 'Go' button then in the bottom right of the screen click 'Search'.

If a user tries to save an eleventh search then an option will be provided to delete the first search.

The cost of including a logo is £50+Vat.

Advertisers choose to receive a printed voucher copy for one of two reasons: a] as a means of proving to a court, an auditor or another regulatory organisation that a notice was published on the date claimed and b] as an easy way to maintain an internal record of the notice.

The cost of voucher copies is £1.55 London Gazette, £0.95 Edinburgh Gazette and £0.75 Belfast Gazette.

This includes packing and postage.

PDF voucher copies cost £2+Vat.