Admiralty, and Ministry of Defence, Navy Department: Correspondence and Papers

IDENTITY STATEMENT AREA

Reference code(s): ADM 1

Title: Admiralty, and Ministry of Defence, Navy Department: Correspondence and Papers

Date(s): 1660 - 1976

Level of description: Series

Extent and medium of the unit of description: 31024 files and volumes

CONTEXT AREA

Name of creator(s): Ministry of Defence, Navy Department, 1964 Board of Admiralty, c 1708-1964

Administrative/Biographical history:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer:

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE AREA

Scope and content: This series consists in origin of official correspondence directed to the Secretary of the Admiralty for the information of the Lord Admiral or the Lords Commissioners. In time the series developed into a collection of correspondence to, from and within all departments of the Admiralty.

The earlier part of this series is almost all in-letters received by the Secretary of the Admiralty concerning the official or semi-official business of the Admiralty Office and the Navy.

From the time of John Clevland, Secretary 1751-1763, it was the custom of the Secretary, when he had read each letter at the Board, to turn over the bottom right-hand corner of the letter and write on it a brief minute of the Board's decision.

These 'turn-over notes' formed the foundation both of the resultant minutes and of the out-letters, but their terse phraseology is much closer than either to the actual discussion at the Board, during which they were written.

Related to these notes is a collection of Board 'rough minutes'. These are rough notes on scraps of paper of the Board's decisions on matters not arising from in-letters. Many of them simply record the names of officers to be promoted or transferred.

In the course of the 19th century minutes were increasingly noted on the in-letters and from 1869 special minute sheets were added to important letters when they were received. Drafts and after 1869 copies of related out-letters were placed with the in-letters, and with the grouping together of all papers on a given subject the series became composed of files of the modern type.

The centralised direction of naval affairs from 1832 resulted in the reference to the Admiralty Board, or individual members of it, of all matters involving policy decisions, and thus in the creation of papers in the Secretary's Department. Moreover, from the middle of the second half of the nineteenth century arrangements were made for important papers registered in an increasing number of the other departments of the Admiralty to be transferred to the Admiralty Record Office.

At subseries level relevant records include for example, ADM 1/27323 British Admiralty Asian Workers Union: question of recognition 1952-1955.

In addition, correspondence with the Colonial Office, Jamaica 1713-1839, and the Leeward Islands 1745-1821 is also held in subseries within ADM1.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

System of arrangement: The papers in this series apparently owe both their origin and their arrangement to the organisation of the Admiralty Office by William Bridgeman, Secretary 1694-1698.

Bridgeman's method was to put away the incoming letters in bundles according to the office or (less often) the name of the writer. Thus in principle all letters from, for example, Commanders-in-Chief at Portsmouth, the Navy Board, or the Secretaries of State, would be kept together in chronological order regardless of the subjects of the letters or the names of those who had signed them.
Bridgeman's arrangement of this series was followed with little change from 1698 to 1839, in which period many alterations took place in the organisation and responsibilities of the Admiralty. For this reason the collections of letters purporting to be from a single source are not in fact always homogenous within themselves, nor are their titles very explanatory.

CONDITIONS OF ACCESS AND USE AREA

Conditions governing access: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Conditions governing reproduction:

Language/scripts of material:

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids: PRO Online Catalogue

There is a Calendar to pieces ADM 1/3522-3523 Name index to naval court martials, 1680-1701, in Research Enquiries Room, Public Record Office, Kew

ALLIED MATERIALS AREA

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related units of description: No index to the contents of these letters was maintained until the development, in 1806-1808, of the Admiralty Index and Digest. These volumes provide subject and nominal indexes to the letters in ADM 1 (and the Board minutes in ADM 3), together with a summary of their contents. The method of using them is explained by a Reference Guide available in the Reference Room. The volumes are in: ADM 12.

Cases/files extracted from ADM 1/116, 137, 167 see ADM 156. For pieces previously ADM 1/26692-26703, see ADM 261.

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION CONTROL AREA

Recorder's note:

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: December 2001

Interest: Caribbean, Asian

Specific group:

Subjects

Trade unions

Naval personnel

Maritime transport

Colonial countries

Colonization

Asian peoples

Armed forces

Personal/Corporate names

British Admiralty Asian Workers Union

Board of Admiralty, c 1708-1964

Places

Jamaica

Leeward Islands