OUR NATIONAL ARCHIVES: THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-163
Keyword(s):  
The Public ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record

Historical Records

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Access ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Public Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Code Of Practice ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Information Regime

Chapter 7 examines the relationship between the freedom of information regime established by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and the pre-existing statutory regime governing the keeping of public records under the Public Records Act 1958. It describes the processes by which public records are transferred to the Public Record Office and opened to public access, and the progressive replacement of the ‘30-year rule’ with a ‘20-year rule’. It explains the separate, but related, concept of ‘historical records’ introduced by the 2000 Act, and the removal of certain exemptions by reference to the age of documents. The special procedures applicable to requests for information in transferred public records that have not been opened to the public are set out. The chapter then summarizes the guidance given to relevant authorities about the above matters by the Lord Chancellor’s Code of Practice and the National Archives.

scholarly journals Select document: Exchequer malpractice in late medieval Ireland: a petition from Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, 1438

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 407-417
Author(s):  
Malcolm Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record ◽  
Medieval Ireland

Preserved amongst the Chancery masters’ exhibits at the National Archives of the U.K., formerly known as the Public Record Office, is a box of documents concerning the Fleming family, Lords Slane, in Ireland. These papers, dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, relate primarily to a protracted inheritance dispute between the heirs male and heirs general of Christopher Fleming, Lord Slane, who died in 1458. This case had been brought into the English Chancery because the family were also landowners in Devon and Cornwall, and it had then rumbled on for decades. Within this box, however, there is also a parchment roll containing a number of entries relating to their Irish lands. The eighth item on this roll is especially interesting.

History of Hut 8 to December 1941 (1945)

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Mahon
Keyword(s):  
Washington Dc ◽  
British Government ◽  
Department Stores ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
First Time

Patrick Mahon (A. P. Mahon) was born on 18 April 1921, the son of C. P. Mahon, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England from 1925 to 1930 and Comptroller from 1929 to 1932. From 1934 to 1939 he attended Marlborough College before going up to Clare College, Cambridge, in October 1939 to read Modern Languages. In July 1941, having achieved a First in both German and French in the Modern Languages Part II, he joined the Army, serving as a private (acting lancecorporal) in the Essex Regiment for several months before being sent to Bletchley. He joined Hut 8 in October 1941, and was its head from the autumn of 1944 until the end of the war. On his release from Bletchley in early 1946 he decided not to return to Cambridge to obtain his degree but instead joined the John Lewis Partnership group of department stores. John Spedan Lewis, founder of the company, was a friend of Hut 8 veteran Hugh Alexander, who effected the introduction. At John Lewis, where he spent his entire subsequent career, Mahon rapidly achieved promotion to director level, but his health deteriorated over a long period. He died on 13 April 1972. This chapter consists of approximately the first half of Mahon’s ‘The History of Hut Eight, 1939–1945’. Mahon’s typescript is dated June 1945 and was written at Hut 8. It remained secret until 1996, when a copy was released by the US government into the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, DC. Subsequently another copy was released by the British government into the Public Record Office at Kew. Mahon’s ‘History’ is published here for the first time. Mahon’s account is first-hand from October 1941. Mahon says, ‘for the early history I am indebted primarily to Turing, the first Head of Hut 8, and most of the early information is based on conversations I have had with him’.

scholarly journals The last forum of accountability? State secrecy, intelligence and freedom of information in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melina J. Dobson
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Sensitive Material ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Public Record

The official mechanisms of intelligence oversight and accountability in the United Kingdom are arguably disjointed and ineffective. Thus, informal actors such as journalists, have played a more significant role. In addition, a rise of whistleblowers and leakers, such as Chelsea Manning, have highlighted the importance of online archives as an avenue for accountability. The United Kingdom is legally bound to place official documents on the public record at the National Archives. Sensitive material on intelligence and other security subjects majorly impedes the bulk release of documents. Inevitably, the inclination to ‘weed’ sensitive material from mundane documents has resulted in a costly declassification process. Evidence suggests that historians successfully investigated these subjects through the use of archives, despite the efforts of officials to obfuscate. This article argues that historians increasingly constitute the last forum of accountability and that routine declassification is an important, but neglected aspect of our machinery of intelligence oversight.

scholarly journals A Brief History of Record Management at the National Archives

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Rock
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Record Management ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Archives ◽  
Official History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
The 1950S

AbstractWork on the official history of criminal justice prompted Paul Rock's interest in why it was that so many government papers, amounting to some 98% of the files produced, have been destroyed over the years. Successive crises in the accumulation of records, accompanied by only a limited increase in the shelving capacity of the Public Record Office - later The National Archives - led in the 1950s and beyond to a firm emphasis being placed on the destruction rather than the retention of papers. Officials and politicians were adamant that the unforeseeable demands which future historians might make on the archives had to be accorded less importance than the economic practicalities of what was called ‘weeding’.

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