The National Archives (United Kingdom)

The National Archives building at Kew.

The National Archives (TNA) is a British Governmental organisation created in April 2003 to maintain a national archive for "England, Wales and the United Kingdom". Scotland and Northern Ireland are excluded; Scotland has its own national archives, and Northern Ireland has a record office.

TNA claims to have "one of the largest archival collections in the world, spanning 1000 years of British history, from the Domesday Book to government papers recently released to the public". It is also "at the heart of information policy - setting standards and supporting innovation in information and records management across the UK, and providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information. This work helps inform today's decisions and ensure that they become tomorrow's permanent record."

TNA was formerly four separate organisations: the Public Record Office, the Historical Manuscripts Commission (formerly the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts), the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) and Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO).

It is institutional policy to include the definite article, with an initial capital letter, in its name (hence "The National Archives", sometimes abbreviated as TNA) but this practice is rarely followed in the media.

History

The National Archives was created in 2003 by combining the Public Record Office and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (for earlier history, see the article on the Public Record Office) and is both a Non-Ministerial Government Department in its own right and an Executive Agency reporting to the Secretary of State for Justice, The Rt Hon Jack Straw. The current Chief Executive (formally Keeper of the Public Records and Historical Manuscripts Commissioner) is Natalie Ceeney, formerly Director of Operations and Services at the British Library. She has replaced Sarah Tyacke (also previously of the British Library), who retired in October 2005.

On 31 October 2006, the National Archives merged with the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), which itself also contained Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) which was previously a part of the Cabinet Office. The name stayed The National Archives. The merger's aim was to create a stronger National Archives which can lead Information Management, ensuring that government information is managed effectively - both to support today's government effectiveness and to guarantee the long term role of the archive.

Roles

The main building of The National Archives is at Kew in west London. The National Archives also operates at three additional sites; the Family Records Centre is in Islington in central London; and there are also offices in Norwich and central London (Admiralty Arch). Both the Kew site and the Family Records Centre are open to the general public. The National Archives are moving the Family Records Centre services onto the Kew site (with a redesign of the Kew site to ensure that it addresses the needs of the Family History users) by March 2008, and to also close the Norwich site to relocate more of its staff at Kew and central london.

The material held at Kew includes the following:

• Documents from the central courts of law from the twelfth century onwards, including the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Supreme Court of Judicature, the Central Criminal Court, Assizes, and many other courts.
• Medieval, early modern and modern records of central government.
• A large and disparate collection of maps, plans and architectural drawings.
• Records for family historians including wills, naturalisation certificates and criminal records.
• Service and operational records of the armed forces War Office, Admiralty etc.
• Foreign Office and Colonial Office correspondence and files.
• Cabinet papers and Home Office records.
• Statistics of the Board of Trade.
• The National Register of Archives, which holds detailed catalogues of all kinds of records relating to British history held elsewhere.
• The Manorial Documents Register, which notes the existence and location of manorial records in England and Wales.
• The surviving records of (mainly) the English railway companies, transferred from the British Railways Record Office.

There is also a museum, which displays key documents such as the Domesday Book and stages a programme of exhibitions.

In early July 2005, an article in the Daily Telegraph claimed that certain documents relating to the death of Heinrich Himmler had been faked. An internal investigation revealed that five documents were indeed forgeries and The National Archives has reviewed its security procedures in the light of this knowledge.

There is a separate National Archives of Scotland (formerly the Scottish Record Office), which holds government and private documents relating to Scotland. A similar institution in Northern Ireland is the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI).

Storage

Moveable shelving in one of the more modern repositories

The documents are stored on double-sided shelves, which are pushed together so that there's no aisle between them. A large handle on the end of each shelf allows them to be moved along tracks in the floor to create an aisle when needed.

They are generally stored in folders or boxes; many of these will have green labels stating when the papers can be examined again under the thirty year rule.

In the event of a fire The National Archives would be clearly unable to use sprinklers for fear of ruining its holdings, and so when the building is evacuated, argon gas is released into the air-tight repositories.

Access to documents

Some of the most popular documents have now been digitised, and are available online – usually at a small fee for downloading. All of the open census records have been digitised, and there are also significant other sources online (such as wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383-1858). Researchers are encouraged to check the online services first, to see if they can get what they want online. If a document is available online, The National Archives' policy is to encourage people to use the digital copy and not the original, even if they come to Kew, in order to protect the original from damage.

Anybody aged 14 or over can access the documents at the Kew site, after producing proof of identity and being issued a free Reader's Ticket. The reading room has terminals from which documents can be ordered up from secure storage areas by their reference number. The reference number is composed of three sections: the department code of up to four letters, such as WO for the War Office; a series or class number, for the "subcategory" or collection that the document comes from; and an individual document number.

Once a document has been ordered, The National Archives aims to get it to the reader within 35 minutes (assuming it is kept at Kew rather than at their second repository, "Deep Store" – a former salt mine in Cheshire).

Frequently accessed documents such as the Abdication Papers have been put on microfilm, as have records for two million First World War soldiers. The originals of the latter were stored in a warehouse in London along with four million others, but incendiary bombs dropped on the warehouse in the Second World War started a fire in which most were destroyed. The surviving third were largely water or fire-damaged and thus acquired the colloquial name of the "Burnt Documents." Because they were mostly too fragile for public access, they were put on microfilm with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund. They are currently being digitised, and should be ready to be accessed online by the end of 2008. A limited number of documents are available on microfiche.

Millions of records are available to download via the DocumentsOnline delivery system. The National Archives has also now set up a 'digitisation on demand' service (called 'Digital Express') where for a small fee a document can be scanned and sent to the researcher electronically (up to 10 pages for a fixed fee) to enable people to access the documents wherever they are. (This is available for most of The National Archives documents, but does exclude particularly large or fragile records.) This can be accessed by clicking onto the record from the online catalogue, where it is displayed as an option.

Your Archives

This wiki was launched in May 2007, to provide a community for record users

Announcement: [1] "Your Archives" website [2]

See also

PRONOM technical registry

External links

• The National Archives
• The Family Records Centre
• National Archives of Scotland — a separate organisation
• Public Record Office of Northern Ireland - the official repository for Northern Ireland
• Specialist and Local Records Offices in England and Wales
• Specialist and Local Records Offices in Scotland
• ARCHON list of repositories in Northern Ireland
• Research Guide: Visiting a Records Office

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