Catalogue description War Office: Directorate of Army Contracts and predecessors: Annual Reports

This series consists of bound volumes of annual reports by the Director of Army Contracts. They summarise the work of the directorate as well as detailing expenditure on contracts (warlike and non-warlike stores) planned during the preceding financial year. It is assumed that the reports were not continued after 1938 as none survives. No reports were produced for the period April 1914 to May 1920, not even the planned retrospective for the First World War.

Included in the reports are particulars of labour disputes affecting the supply of stores etc; details of contracts procedures; and a breakdown of numbers and values of contracts placed, grouped by individual purchasing branch and requisitioning department.

War Office, Control Department, Surveyor General of Ordnance, Directorate of Contracts, 1870-1887

War Office, Department of the Quartermaster General, Contracts Section, 1904-1907

War Office, Department of the Surveyor General of Supply, Directorate of Army Contracts, 1917-1924

War Office, Directorate of Army Contracts, 1907-1917

War Office, Directorate of Army Contracts, 1936-1964

War Office, Financial Secretary, Contracts Branch, 1887-1904

War Office, Financial Secretary, Directorate of Army Contracts, 1924-1936

War Office, Master General of the Ordnance, Contracts Section, 1904-1907

In 1995 Ministry of Defence