Volume 1

Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain / by Charles M. Andrews.

  • Charles McLean Andrews
Date:
1912-1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain / by Charles M. Andrews. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION. HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. The Public Record Office, located on the old Rolls Estate between Chan¬ cery and Fetter Lanes, owes its origin to the report of a select committee of the House of Commons in 1837 recommending that the national records, widely scattered and inadequately housed, receive the attention of Parliament. Acting upon this report, Parliament in 1838 passed an act “ For keeping safely the Public Records ” whereby it was ordered that all public documents in certain specified repositories should pass into the custody of the Master of the Rolls as Keeper of the Records and be subject to such disposition and regulation as he might propose for their greater security and accessibility. Though the act declared it expedient that one Record Office be established and though the former Record Commissioners, the Select Committee, the Master of the Rolls (Lord Langdale), and his Deputy Keeper (Sir Francis Palgrave), at one time or another emphasized the importance of erecting at once a single, central repository, in which all the records might be gathered, the Treasury took no immediate steps to that end and for fourteen years it was necessary to be content with an arrangement that was merely temporary. It is noteworthy that the entire body of records provided for in the act were not finally housed in a single building until 1895, and that not until 1900, when “ Judges Chambers ” was pulled down, was the whole establishment of the Record Office at last located under a single roof. On December 14, 1838, Sir Francis Palgrave, who had been custodian of the Chapter House records since 1834, was appointed Deputy Keeper of the Public Records and immediately steps were taken to carry out the provisions of the act. A central office was established in Rolls House, a four-story building on the Rolls Estate, in which were located the court room of the Master of the Rolls, offices for the Deputy Keeper, the assistant keepers, and clerks, and rooms on the upper floors for such records as might need to be removed from the existing places of deposit. In 1840 and 1841 the Master of the Rolls took into his official custody the records in the Tower, the Rolls Chapel, the Chapter House and Stone Tower, Westminster, Carlton Ride, no. 3, Whitehall, the vaults in Somerset House, and elsewhere, and at once established these repositories and also certain houses in Rolls Yard, fitted up for the purpose, as branch Public Record offices, each under the immediate charge of an assistant keeper. A few transfers of records were made, but in the main the documents were left for the time being in their original reposi¬ tories. A Record Office establishment, consisting of eight assistant keepers and eighteen clerks, was organized, rules and lists of fees, common to all the
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