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Greene, his predecessor the Pilgrim Trust gave the R.P.S. 2,000 a year
for 5 years to enable this work to continue; and now that this source of
income has ceased, the Treasury have this year made it possible for the
Historical Manuscripts Commission to make a similar annual grant for this
work.
There is another development in the policy of the H.M.C. which may be
of interest to you. It concerns the Record publishing societies, of which there
are many associated with the English and Welsh counties. They exist to
publish records relating to counties or regions. They are having a difficult
time on account of the steep rise in the cost of printing. As a measure for
relieving the difficulties of these local societies, the H.M.C. has a plan for
joint publication which provides that the Commission will publish in a new
Joint Seres certain material which, though selected and prepared by record
societies, is of national interest and edited to a sufficiently high standard to
justify publicaton by the Commission. The Record Society will then be able
to purchase from the Stationery Office copies of this volume at a much
lower cost than it could if it produced it alone. Among the first three
volumes selected for selected for joint publication is the Correspondence of
the Constable family, 1796-1837 (Constable, the notable East Anglian pain
ter), in conjunction with the Record Society of the County of Suffolk.
A word about proposals for the statutory control of archives other than
the State Archives.
I referred earlier to the Committee set up in 1943 to consider the question
of the protection of these archives, and to its first recommendation that there
should be a National Register of Archives.
In 1946 a Memorandum containing proposals for the control of Local and
Private Archives was submitted to the Master of the Roles. As a precedent
both for public control and for the establishment of suitable bodies with
advisory and executive functions to exercise this control, it quotel the case
of Ancient Monuments which are listed and controlled. It recommended the
establishment of a National Archives Council under the chairmanship of
the head of the Public Record Office; this Council, consisting of represen
tatives of the interests concerned, was to have the services of an Inspector
as its chief executive officer with necessary technical and clerical staff, the
cost to be defrayed by the State.
The Archives registered with the National Register were to be divided
into three grades.
The 1st grade, a strictly limited number of Archives of undoubted national
importance, were to be described as Starred Archves.
The 2nd grade, a larger but stll limited number of archives, of undoubted
permanent value for historical purposes, but not, shall we say, of National
rank, were to be known as Listed Archives.
The remainder were simply to be registered.
For the protection and public availabilty of the first grade, the Starred
Archives, it was proposed that they
1should not leave the United Kingdom,
(2) should not be dispersed,
and (3) should not change location or ownership without the National Council
being informed;
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(4) they should be kept under suitable and safe conditions, either by their
owners or custodians, or in approved repository,
and (5) they should be available for examination by serious students.
The Listed archives, the second grade, were to be subject to inspection by
the National Council, and must not be alienated, dispersed or destroyed
without the Council being given the right of acquiring them on behalf of a
suitable repository.
I have mentioned only the most important of the proposals submitted in
1946. They have not been implemented.
It is time that I summarized what has been done in England and Wales
for the preservation of Family Archives and for making them available for
research. I think the best way to illustrate the progress made is first of all
to quote from the new Royal Warrant granted to the Commission in December
of last year.
The object of the Historical Manuscripts Commission launched in 1869
had been, we remember, to find out what collections existed and make reports
on them. No limiting date was specified, but in practice the Commission did
not concern itself with material beyond, say, the 18th century; and since
the first war the Commission had tended to confine itself to the publication
of full Calendars of a few important Collections.
The new Warrant of 1959 mirrors recent developments. As in the first one
it commands the Commissioners to inquire as to the existence and location
of manuscripts of value for the study of history (other than public records):
and with the consent of owners and custodians, to inspect and report on them,
and publish or assist in the publication of such reports. It also says that
they should record particulars of such manuscripts in a National Register of
Archives: that they should promote and assist the proper preservation and
storage of these manuscripts, and assist those wishing to use them for research
(in other words, to advise owners to deposit their family archives in reposi
tories and libraries where they will be properly looked after and where there
are facilities for the searchers, and also provide working lists of these Col
lections). The Commission is also to promote the co-ordinated action of all
professional bodies concerned with the preservation and use of such manuscripts.
And finally, the Commission is to carry out, instead of the Public Record
Office, the statutory duties of the Master of the Rolls in respect of manorial
and tithe documents. And this reminds me that I have not specifically mentioned
manorial documents (one advantage of summing up a lecture, I find, is that
ons can introduce a reference to a matter which one had omitted to mention
earlier).
Manorial documents 1 the Court Rolls of a manor; the manor can be
regarded as perhaps the highest form of private ownership, for the lord of
the manor had exceptional rights over his tenants. He could hold a Court,
and so manorial records form an exceptionally interesting class of private
and family archives. I am going to mention two Acts of Parliament, the first
of which has nothing to do with the manor. The first was the Short Title
Act of 1874, which reduced to some 40 years the period in which the landowner
had to prove title to freehold land. This made it no longer necessary to
produce earlier deeds which had been preserved carefully by property owners
and their solicitors: and so these deeds, some of them many centuries old,
