AS BREXITDAY APPROACHES (we assume, at time of going to press) the humble passport is getting more attention than usual. British-issued ones allow visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to all but around 34 countries (passportindex.org), yet the most ‘powerful’ passports are those held by citizens of Japan, Germany, Singapore or the UAE, depending on how you measure.
The documents are such symbols of nationhood that it’s easy to forget they’ve only been an international requirement for a century or so. Although there’s a 2,400year-old mention of safe-conducts in the Bible, and a reference to English passports in a 1414 act of parliament, such early passes were intended for diplomats, rather than tourists. In the late 19th century, the small but growing number of international leisure travellers did not generally need passports. It was WWI that truly ushered in border bureaucracy. The irst British photo passports were issued in 1915, as a single sheet of folded paper (the blue cover came in 1921). The new requirements were much resented, with physical descriptions of the passport holder seen as dehumanising.