Parliamentary Archives
Encyclopedia
The Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom
preserves and makes available to public the records of the House of Lords
and House of Commons back to 1497, as well as some 200 other collections of Parliamentary
interest. The present title was officially adopted in November 2006, as a change from the previous title, House of Lords Record Office.
Over three million records are held by the Archives in the Victoria Tower
of the Palace of Westminster
on 5.5 miles of shelving. Some of the most important constitutional records of the United Kingdom are stored by the Archives, including the Petition of Right
(1628), Death Warrant of Charles I
(1649), the Habeas Corpus Act 1679
, the draft and final Bill of Rights (1689), the Slave Trade Act
(1807 and 1833), the Great Reform Act (1832), and successive Representation of the People Acts.
Its public search-room is open from Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm, and is free to the public, although appointments to visit should be made owing to limited seating space. The Archives also oversees records management for Parliament, has an active outreach programme and frequently appears on radio and TV programmes.
originated in March 1497, when the then Clerk, Master Richard Hatton, having prepared the Parliament Roll for that session for transfer to Chancery, retained in the House of Lords the complete series of sixteen enacted Bills, or Original Acts, from which he had made the enrolment. Since then, this series has been preserved continuously among the records of the House of Lords.
By 1509, the Clerk of the Parliaments
and his assistants (today known collectively as the Parliament Office) had hived off from Chancery
, and in the course of the 16th century this newly independent Lords office gradually expanded and formalised its record keeping. In addition to the class of Original Acts already mentioned, the clerks preserved Journals of the House of Lords, now surviving from 1510, Petitions from 1531 and Bills from 1558. It seems, however, that the office was somewhat haphazard in its methods; Cardinal Wolsey, for instance, when Lord Chancellor
, is said to have removed all the Acts and Journals relating to one session. A more business-like administration began with the advent of two Clerks in the 17th century, Robert Bowyer (1609–1621) and Henry Elsynge
(1621–1635). Under these diligent and scholarly men the Lords archive took its modern form. Petitions and many other forms of Papers coming to the Lords were carefully filed; extensive series of rough Minutes and of Committee Proceedings were preserved; and, not least in importance, the records were assigned a permanent home at the south west corner of the Palace of Westminster
, in a moated building (still surviving, and open to the public), the 14th-century Jewel Tower
. Here the principal records of the Lords remained from 1621 to 1864, being available throughout this period for inspection by the public. The contents of some were given still wider currency in the 18th century as certain Bills and Papers began to be printed, and when, in 1767, the Lords ordered the printing of their Journals.
Meanwhile, a second Parliamentary archive, the records of the House of Commons, had been forming in another part of the Palace of Westminster. Initially, in the Middle Ages, it could be said that no formal records at all were made of the domestic proceedings of the House of Commons. From 1547, however, a Commons Journal survives, and, parallel with the formation in the Lords of the main Parliamentary records under Bowyer and Elsynge, separate series of domestic records of the Commons began to accumulate, of Petitions and Papers (from the reign of Elizabeth I), of Return Books of Elections (from 1625) and of Minute Books of Committees (from 1623).
and various attics throughout the Commons, all of which went up in smoke.
The House of Lords archive, however, survived. This was in part due to the isolated position of the Jewel Tower
, where the main series of records had been preserved, but also in part owing to the efforts of a Lords clerk, Henry Stone Smith, who threw out of the blazing windows of the main building onto Old Palace Yard many hundreds of bundles of other Lords papers that had not been transferred to the Jewel Tower. These bundles for several decades after the fire led a confused existence, being virtually forgotten by those outside the Parliament Office, until, in 1870, the newly-formed Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts began to issue regular Reports. In them the Commission drew attention to the extent and variety of manuscripts preserved in the House of Lords. The first Report of the Commission brought to light a packet of letters which had been abandoned by Charles I
at the Battle of Naseby
, as well as the "annexed" Book of Common Prayer
of 1662, the Declaration of Breda
, and other public muniments which had "just been untombed from this mausoleum of historic remains" (as Thomas Duffus Hardy
and his fellow Commissioners remarked). The succeeding Reports of the Commissioners were continued from 1900 onwards by calendars published by the House of Lords
itself.
During the time that the records were being identified and calendared on behalf of the Historical Manuscripts Commission they were also gradually being installed in a new repository. After the fire of 1834, the House of Lords gave directions that a new building must contain two "Fireproof Repositories for Papers and Documents". Charles Barry
's winning design had as its culminating feature a tower over the Royal entrance in which every storey included "Record Rooms". The height of this tower, the "Queen Victoria Tower
", steadily increased from that indicated in the original plan (of some 200 feet (61 m)) until, in 1855, when the wrought-iron flagstaff was at last put into position, the Tower was proudly claimed to be not merely "the grandest feature of the building", but the largest and highest square tower in the world, 323 feet (98.5 m) high to the base of the flagstaff and 395 feet (120.4 m) high to the top of the crown at its summit. Within the Tower, cast-iron spiral staircases of 553 steps linked twelve floors, and on most of the floors there were eight strong rooms—accommodation at that time so ample for the Parliamentary records that at one stage the Tower was intended also to house the principal holdings of the Public Record Office
.
During the twentieth century, two important developments occurred in the preservation of the Parliamentary records. The first concerned the records of the Commons. In 1927 the Clerk of the House of Commons resolved to transfer to the Victoria Tower an extensive post-1834 series of Private Bill records, though still retaining ultimate ownership of them for the House. This precedent has been followed by succeeding Clerks of the Commons, and in 1957 the core records of the House of Commons, the series of some 241 original manuscript Journals, dating from 1547 to 1800, were deposited in the Victoria Tower, by authority of the Speaker of the House. Secondly, in 1937, the then-Clerk of the Parliaments, Sir Henry Badeley
, initiated a survey of the entire Lords archive. The resulting report by V. M. R. Goodman revealed the necessity of a full-time staff (which the records did not then have) to undertake boxing, repair and production of the manuscripts. The Second World War intervened, but in 1946 Badeley set up a House of Lords Record Office, under a Clerk of the Records who was to act as the deputy of the Clerk of the Parliaments in all record matters.
In 1975 the major acquisition of the collections of the Beaverbrook Library expanded the collection to include the papers of David Lloyd-George, Andrew Bonar Law, and Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook
.
The principal activity of the House of Lords Record Office, however, in the immediate post-war years concerned the reconstruction of the repository. The Victoria Tower, although ample in dimensions, was found in 1948 to be defective both in its structure and its equipment. In the course of the following years the interior of the Tower was therefore almost entirely rebuilt by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. The resulting repository was air conditioned and contained 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of steel shelving on twelve floors. It was declared open by the Viscount Hailsham
, Leader of the House of Lords
, on 3 July 1963, with the intention, as he said, that "this new building may have a long and distinguished career... in the service of Parliament, history, and culture". This lasted until the late 1990s, when it became clear that the air-conditioning in the repository was failing to comply with required standards, and other services needed updating.
. The survey findings were incorporated into the Parliamentary Records Management Policy Guidelines, which was approved by both houses. This was followed by a project to implement corporate records management to international standards in Parliament. In 2001, a new post of Freedom of Information Officer was created to develop and implement policies for House of Lords' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000
and the Data Protection Act 1998. From 2000 to 2004 the air-conditioning and other environmental controls in the Victoria Tower
were refurbished to bring it up to the British Standard for archival storage, BS 5454
, and from 2000 to 2005 a major project converted the paper finding aids of the collections into a single on-line catalogue, known as Portcullis.
Historical collections of the House of Commons Library
and Lords Library
are also available in the Archives.
In 1999, the House of Lords Record Office took on the subsidiary title of Parliamentary Archives in order to clarify the custodial responsibility and whereabouts of the House of Commons Archives for members of the public, and in 2006 this became its official name.
Today the Archives employs 23 staff, plus contracted-out conservation services.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
preserves and makes available to public the records of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
and House of Commons back to 1497, as well as some 200 other collections of Parliamentary
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
interest. The present title was officially adopted in November 2006, as a change from the previous title, House of Lords Record Office.
Over three million records are held by the Archives in the Victoria Tower
Victoria Tower
The Victoria Tower is the square tower at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster in London, facing south and west onto Black Rod's Garden and Old Palace Yard. At , it is slightly taller than the more famous Clock Tower at the north end of the Palace . It houses the Parliamentary Archives...
of the Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
on 5.5 miles of shelving. Some of the most important constitutional records of the United Kingdom are stored by the Archives, including the Petition of Right
Petition of right
In English law, a petition of right was a remedy available to subjects to recover property from the Crown.Before the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, the British Crown could not be sued in contract...
(1628), Death Warrant of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
(1649), the Habeas Corpus Act 1679
Habeas Corpus Act 1679
The Habeas Corpus Act 1679 is an Act of the Parliament of England passed during the reign of King Charles II by what became known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament to define and strengthen the ancient prerogative writ of habeas corpus, whereby persons unlawfully detained cannot be ordered to be...
, the draft and final Bill of Rights (1689), the Slave Trade Act
Slave Trade Act
The Slave Trade Act was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on 25 March 1807, with the long title "An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade". The original act is in the Parliamentary Archives...
(1807 and 1833), the Great Reform Act (1832), and successive Representation of the People Acts.
Its public search-room is open from Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm, and is free to the public, although appointments to visit should be made owing to limited seating space. The Archives also oversees records management for Parliament, has an active outreach programme and frequently appears on radio and TV programmes.
History
The archive of the House of LordsHouse of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
originated in March 1497, when the then Clerk, Master Richard Hatton, having prepared the Parliament Roll for that session for transfer to Chancery, retained in the House of Lords the complete series of sixteen enacted Bills, or Original Acts, from which he had made the enrolment. Since then, this series has been preserved continuously among the records of the House of Lords.
By 1509, the Clerk of the Parliaments
Clerk of the Parliaments
The Clerk of the Parliaments is the chief clerk of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The position has existed since at least 1315, and duties include preparing the minutes of Lords proceedings, advising on proper parliamentary procedure and pronouncing the Royal Assent...
and his assistants (today known collectively as the Parliament Office) had hived off from Chancery
Court of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid the slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the administration of the estates of...
, and in the course of the 16th century this newly independent Lords office gradually expanded and formalised its record keeping. In addition to the class of Original Acts already mentioned, the clerks preserved Journals of the House of Lords, now surviving from 1510, Petitions from 1531 and Bills from 1558. It seems, however, that the office was somewhat haphazard in its methods; Cardinal Wolsey, for instance, when Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, is said to have removed all the Acts and Journals relating to one session. A more business-like administration began with the advent of two Clerks in the 17th century, Robert Bowyer (1609–1621) and Henry Elsynge
Henry Elsynge
Henry Elsynge was an English administrator, who acted as clerk of the House of Commons, and wrote on parliamentary procedure.-Life:...
(1621–1635). Under these diligent and scholarly men the Lords archive took its modern form. Petitions and many other forms of Papers coming to the Lords were carefully filed; extensive series of rough Minutes and of Committee Proceedings were preserved; and, not least in importance, the records were assigned a permanent home at the south west corner of the Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
, in a moated building (still surviving, and open to the public), the 14th-century Jewel Tower
Jewel Tower
The Jewel Tower in London is one of only two surviving sections of the medieval royal Palace of Westminster, the other being Westminster Hall. It was built in 1365-1366 to house the private treasures of Edward III and its alternative name was the "King's Privy Wardrobe". In the early 17th-century...
. Here the principal records of the Lords remained from 1621 to 1864, being available throughout this period for inspection by the public. The contents of some were given still wider currency in the 18th century as certain Bills and Papers began to be printed, and when, in 1767, the Lords ordered the printing of their Journals.
Meanwhile, a second Parliamentary archive, the records of the House of Commons, had been forming in another part of the Palace of Westminster. Initially, in the Middle Ages, it could be said that no formal records at all were made of the domestic proceedings of the House of Commons. From 1547, however, a Commons Journal survives, and, parallel with the formation in the Lords of the main Parliamentary records under Bowyer and Elsynge, separate series of domestic records of the Commons began to accumulate, of Petitions and Papers (from the reign of Elizabeth I), of Return Books of Elections (from 1625) and of Minute Books of Committees (from 1623).
The Archives after the fire of 1834
By the early 19th century these documents were considerable in quantity, but on the night of 16 October 1834 almost the entire stock—with the vital exception of the Commons Journals—was consumed in the "tally stick fire", which destroyed a great part of the fabric of the Palace of Westminster. They had been stored in the House of Commons LibraryHouse of Commons Library
The House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. It has adopted the phrase "Contributing to a well-informed democracy" as a summary of its mission statement.- History :...
and various attics throughout the Commons, all of which went up in smoke.
The House of Lords archive, however, survived. This was in part due to the isolated position of the Jewel Tower
Jewel Tower
The Jewel Tower in London is one of only two surviving sections of the medieval royal Palace of Westminster, the other being Westminster Hall. It was built in 1365-1366 to house the private treasures of Edward III and its alternative name was the "King's Privy Wardrobe". In the early 17th-century...
, where the main series of records had been preserved, but also in part owing to the efforts of a Lords clerk, Henry Stone Smith, who threw out of the blazing windows of the main building onto Old Palace Yard many hundreds of bundles of other Lords papers that had not been transferred to the Jewel Tower. These bundles for several decades after the fire led a confused existence, being virtually forgotten by those outside the Parliament Office, until, in 1870, the newly-formed Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts began to issue regular Reports. In them the Commission drew attention to the extent and variety of manuscripts preserved in the House of Lords. The first Report of the Commission brought to light a packet of letters which had been abandoned by Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
at the Battle of Naseby
Battle of Naseby
The Battle of Naseby was the key battle of the first English Civil War. On 14 June 1645, the main army of King Charles I was destroyed by the Parliamentarian New Model Army commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.-The Campaign:...
, as well as the "annexed" Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
of 1662, the Declaration of Breda
Declaration of Breda
The Declaration of Breda was a proclamation by Charles II of England in which he promised a general pardon for crimes committed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum for all those who recognised Charles as the lawful king; the retention by the current owners of property purchased during...
, and other public muniments which had "just been untombed from this mausoleum of historic remains" (as Thomas Duffus Hardy
Thomas Duffus Hardy
Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy was an English archivist and antiquary.-Life:He was the third son of Major Thomas Bartholomew Price Hardy, and belonged to a family several members of which had distinguished themselves in the British navy. Born at Port Royal in Jamaica, he crossed over to England and in...
and his fellow Commissioners remarked). The succeeding Reports of the Commissioners were continued from 1900 onwards by calendars published by the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
itself.
During the time that the records were being identified and calendared on behalf of the Historical Manuscripts Commission they were also gradually being installed in a new repository. After the fire of 1834, the House of Lords gave directions that a new building must contain two "Fireproof Repositories for Papers and Documents". Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
's winning design had as its culminating feature a tower over the Royal entrance in which every storey included "Record Rooms". The height of this tower, the "Queen Victoria Tower
Victoria Tower
The Victoria Tower is the square tower at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster in London, facing south and west onto Black Rod's Garden and Old Palace Yard. At , it is slightly taller than the more famous Clock Tower at the north end of the Palace . It houses the Parliamentary Archives...
", steadily increased from that indicated in the original plan (of some 200 feet (61 m)) until, in 1855, when the wrought-iron flagstaff was at last put into position, the Tower was proudly claimed to be not merely "the grandest feature of the building", but the largest and highest square tower in the world, 323 feet (98.5 m) high to the base of the flagstaff and 395 feet (120.4 m) high to the top of the crown at its summit. Within the Tower, cast-iron spiral staircases of 553 steps linked twelve floors, and on most of the floors there were eight strong rooms—accommodation at that time so ample for the Parliamentary records that at one stage the Tower was intended also to house the principal holdings of the Public Record Office
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office of the United Kingdom is one of the three organisations that make up the National Archives...
.
During the twentieth century, two important developments occurred in the preservation of the Parliamentary records. The first concerned the records of the Commons. In 1927 the Clerk of the House of Commons resolved to transfer to the Victoria Tower an extensive post-1834 series of Private Bill records, though still retaining ultimate ownership of them for the House. This precedent has been followed by succeeding Clerks of the Commons, and in 1957 the core records of the House of Commons, the series of some 241 original manuscript Journals, dating from 1547 to 1800, were deposited in the Victoria Tower, by authority of the Speaker of the House. Secondly, in 1937, the then-Clerk of the Parliaments, Sir Henry Badeley
Henry Badeley, 1st Baron Badeley
Henry John Fanshawe Badeley, 1st Baron Badeley KCB, CBE , known as Sir Henry Badeley between 1935 and 1949, was a British civil servant and engraver...
, initiated a survey of the entire Lords archive. The resulting report by V. M. R. Goodman revealed the necessity of a full-time staff (which the records did not then have) to undertake boxing, repair and production of the manuscripts. The Second World War intervened, but in 1946 Badeley set up a House of Lords Record Office, under a Clerk of the Records who was to act as the deputy of the Clerk of the Parliaments in all record matters.
The House of Lords Record Office
To the Clerk of the Records was entrusted the care of the contents of the Victoria Tower, including both Lords and Commons documents and certain other small groups of records relating to the Palace of Westminster. A public Search Room was opened, and when in the 1950s the Record Office Technical Committee highlighted the need for repairing the thousands of deposited plans in the Victoria Tower, two craftsmen were recruited specifically for this task. Today the conservation unit numbers six staff, on secondment from the British Library. The publication of calendars, which had ceased in 1922, was resumed in 1949 and continued to the 1980s.In 1975 the major acquisition of the collections of the Beaverbrook Library expanded the collection to include the papers of David Lloyd-George, Andrew Bonar Law, and Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook
Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Bt, PC, was a Canadian-British business tycoon, politician, and writer.-Early career in Canada:...
.
The principal activity of the House of Lords Record Office, however, in the immediate post-war years concerned the reconstruction of the repository. The Victoria Tower, although ample in dimensions, was found in 1948 to be defective both in its structure and its equipment. In the course of the following years the interior of the Tower was therefore almost entirely rebuilt by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. The resulting repository was air conditioned and contained 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of steel shelving on twelve floors. It was declared open by the Viscount Hailsham
Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
For the businessman and philanthropist, see Quintin Hogg Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, KG, CH, PC, QC, FRS , formerly 2nd Viscount Hailsham , was a British politician who was known for the longevity of his career, the vigour with which he campaigned for the Conservative...
, Leader of the House of Lords
Leader of the House of Lords
The Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council,...
, on 3 July 1963, with the intention, as he said, that "this new building may have a long and distinguished career... in the service of Parliament, history, and culture". This lasted until the late 1990s, when it became clear that the air-conditioning in the repository was failing to comply with required standards, and other services needed updating.
The Parliamentary Archives today
From 1996 to 2000, a records management survey was undertaken of most of the administrative offices of the Palace of WestminsterPalace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
. The survey findings were incorporated into the Parliamentary Records Management Policy Guidelines, which was approved by both houses. This was followed by a project to implement corporate records management to international standards in Parliament. In 2001, a new post of Freedom of Information Officer was created to develop and implement policies for House of Lords' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...
and the Data Protection Act 1998. From 2000 to 2004 the air-conditioning and other environmental controls in the Victoria Tower
Victoria Tower
The Victoria Tower is the square tower at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster in London, facing south and west onto Black Rod's Garden and Old Palace Yard. At , it is slightly taller than the more famous Clock Tower at the north end of the Palace . It houses the Parliamentary Archives...
were refurbished to bring it up to the British Standard for archival storage, BS 5454
BS 5454
BS 5454, "Recommendations for the storage and exhibition of archival documents" is a British Standard for the preservation of archival material. Among other things, it specifies temperature and humidity ranges for document storage, shelving schemes, and materials for document containers.- External...
, and from 2000 to 2005 a major project converted the paper finding aids of the collections into a single on-line catalogue, known as Portcullis.
Historical collections of the House of Commons Library
House of Commons Library
The House of Commons Library is the library and information resource of the lower house of the British Parliament. It has adopted the phrase "Contributing to a well-informed democracy" as a summary of its mission statement.- History :...
and Lords Library
House of Lords Library
The House of Lords Library is the library and information resource of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
are also available in the Archives.
In 1999, the House of Lords Record Office took on the subsidiary title of Parliamentary Archives in order to clarify the custodial responsibility and whereabouts of the House of Commons Archives for members of the public, and in 2006 this became its official name.
Today the Archives employs 23 staff, plus contracted-out conservation services.
Clerks of the Records
The Head of the Archives is known as the Clerk of the Records. Since 1946 this post has been held by:- Francis Needham (1946)
- Maurice Bond (1946)
- H S Cobb (1981)
- David Johnson (1991)
- Stephen Ellison (1999)
- Caroline Shenton (2008)