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Point by point Autonumerology.com potted history of Personal Number Plates

• The Motor Car Act of 1903 introduced measures to help identify vehicles and their drivers. All motor vehicles were to be registered, and to display registration marks in a prominent position.
• All drivers were also to be licensed annually. County Councils and County Borough Councils were made Registration and Licensing Authorities; the vehicle registration fee was twenty shillings and the drivers licence fee was five shillings.
• The Roads Act 1920 required Councils to register all vehicles at the time of licensing and to allocate a separate number to each vehicle. The number was to be displayed in the prescribed manner.
• People were also required to notify the local Council when they bought a vehicle. There were also licensing provisions for manufacturers and traders - a General Licence was the forerunner of the present trade plate system. Hackney carriages were required to be fitted with a distinctive sign, and to indicate how many persons the vehicle could seat.
• The first ever registration in London was A 1, issued to Earl Russell who wanted the registration so much he camped out all night to secure it.
• Later formats were comprised of two letters and four numbers. These series were replaced as and when they were exhausted. The problem was that with some areas being more populated, and therefore having a larger volume of vehicles, than others, the registrations were taken at different rates. So, whilst the Liverpool series KA lasted for only two years between 1925 and 1927, the series SJ was still being issued by Bute Council in 1963.
• By the mid 1930s, the two letter/four number series of registration marks were completely exhausted in some areas, and new three letters/with up to three numbers series were introduced.
• AAA 1 was issued (by Hampshire County Council) in 1934 through to AAA 999 and the commencement of the BAA series in 1936. This process continued until the mid 1950s when marks were reversed and up to three numbers preceded three letters.
• By 1963 several councils were close to the end of their allocation, so they began to issue "suffix" registration marks. A 7th digit was added to the Number Plate System. This extra digit was a letter, which gave the age of the car. The registration year began with the letter A and ran from 1 January - 31 December, when it was swapped for the letter B and so on.
• In August 1967 after pressure from the motor car industry to smooth out purchasing demand, the changeover date was moved from January 1st to August 1st.
• The system continued until it became exhausted, ending with the letter Y on the 31 July 1983. The letters I and Z were, never used as these were reserved for Northern Ireland, whilst the letter Q was reserved for kit cars and repaired write offs etc. for unknown reasons the letter U was never used at all.
• In 1973 the appearance of registration plates was changed for the first time since 1903. From 1 January, vehicles were required to have reflective number plates - black on white at the front and black on yellow at the back. Reflective plates were introduced so that unlit vehicles could be seen more easily at night. The regulations also provided for the size, shape and character of registration marks.
• By 1983 they faced the same problem again. The end of the "suffix" letter therefore saw the implementation of the Prefix, by reversing the number plate giving a letter first then up to 3 numbers then a space then 3 more letters.
• In 1999 the standard "1-plate-per-year" system was increased and two plate changes a year, 1 March and 1 September were introduced.
• In 2001, the new registration format was introduced; number plates would have a format composed of 2 prefix letters, 2 numbers, then 3 letters. The 2 prefix letters are determined by the location of registration, the 2 numbers following this relate to the year of registration, and the remaining 3 letters are random registration marks.
• As soon as the various prefix and suffix style plates were issued people were quick to catch on to the concept that the standard arrangement of numbers could also depict certain letters. For example the number plate 51N was no longer classed as 51 N but read as SIN and the plate SAT 4N was read as SATAN.