Catalogue description Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Aviation and Telecommunications Department and predecessors: Registered Files (MU and predecessor series)

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Details of FCO 14
Reference: FCO 14
Title: Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Aviation and Telecommunications Department and predecessors: Registered Files (MU and predecessor series)
Description:

This series contains the records of the departments of the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office, and their successors, which dealt with questions relating to international communications.

Subjects covered include civil aviation (airlines and airports, air service agreements, traffic rights and routes, air space, over-flying rights and air travel control, national travel restrictions, international jurisdiction matters in the field of transport and communications matters, national legislation and tourism); posts and telecommunications (work and membership of the Universal Postal Union, provision of postal services in the dependent territories, stamp issues, telegraphy, radio communications, the work of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board, Council, Bureau and Organisation and the International Telecommunications Union (telecommunications satellites and the use of outer space, undersea cables); meteorology (including the work of the World Meteorological Organisation); international rivers (especially the Danube Commission and the Central Rhine Commission); marine transport (the Law of the Sea, coastal navigation conventions, flags of convenience and flag discrimination, ports and sea canals, hazardous cargoes, losses at sea, maintenance of lights, sea pollution, especially oil pollution, marine safety issues); international waters (fishing grounds and rights, and continental shelf delimitations, mineral extraction); international road transport; and the Channel Tunnel

Date: 1967-1973
Arrangement:

Arrangement is by former file reference within annual cycles, after the initial transfer of records from 1967 to October 1968, which are additionally arranged according to creating department.

Related material:

For earlier Commonwealth Office and Commonwealth Relations Office records relating to transport and communications matters see DO 160

For further files dealing with shipping matters see FCO 22

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: AT, AMT, GL and MU file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Commonwealth Office, Aviation and Telecommunications Department, 1967-1968

Commonwealth Office, Aviation, Marine and Telecommunications Department, 1968-1968

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Aviation and Telecommunications Department, 1971-1973

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Aviation, Marine and Telecommunications Department, 1968-1971

Foreign Office, Aviation, Marine and Telecommunications Department, 1968-1968

Foreign Office, General Department, 1940-1968

Physical description: 1086 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
Immediate source of acquisition:

From 1999 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Accruals: Series is accruing annually
Administrative / biographical background:

The merger between the Commonwealth Office Aviation and Telecommunications Department, and those parts of the Foreign Office General Department which dealt with communications and transport matters was planned as part of the phased merger of the two Offices.

A joint Aviation, Marine and Telecommunications Department was formed at the end of April 1968, and this passed in turn to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in October 1968 with functions and title unaltered. Responsibility for matters relating to Commonwealth interest in communications in outer space passed to the Foreign Office Scientific Relations Department at the time of the formation of the joint department.

In 1971 the functions of the Aviation, Marine and Telecommunications Department were split. The MU file series continued to be used by a new Aviation and Telecommunications Department, while a separate Marine and Transport Department was created to handle questions relating to marine and road communications.

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