Catalogue description Records of Regional Organisation

Under the 1919 Forestry Act, executive control of the commission's work was entrusted to three assistant commissioners responsible for the purely executive work required by the Act, one each for Scotland and Ireland, and one for England and Wales. The post of assistant commissioner for Ireland was abolished in March 1922. A regional organisation was established under the assistant commissioners, dividing the country into a number of divisions each in the charge of a divisional officer responsible for all state forestry work and for giving advice to private woodlands owners.

Within each division, district officers had charge of specified groups of forests. The number of divisions changed over the years as the commission purchased more land for planting and existing woodlands: by 1936 the number of divisions had settled at thirteen: East, North, South and West (Scotland); North and South (Wales); South West, South East, East, North East and North West (England); the New Forest and the Forest of Dean.

Crown woodlands, including the Forest of Dean, the New Forest, Alice Holt and Bedgebury were placed under the technical supervision of the Commissioners by the Act, and this supervision was in practice handled at Divisional level. The bulk of the crown woodlands was formerly transferred to the Commission by several Forestry (Transfer of Woods) Orders, 1924 to 1926 made under the Transfer of Woods Act 1923, at which point the former crown woodlands were absorbed into the divisional structure (with the exception of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, which became divisions in their own right, and were run by deputy surveyors).

In the general reorganisation which followed the Forestry Act 1945 three directors of forestry were appointed to take charge of the commission's responsibilities in England, Scotland and Wales, replacing the assistant commissioners. The directors were assisted by three National Committees, based in the national headquarters that were established in London, Edinburgh and Aberystwyth. The committees had some executive powers relating to land acquisition, planting operations, estate management, finance and National Forest Parks, and relations with private forestry interests.

The divisions were reorganised as eleven conservancies in May 1945, each under a conservator of forests, assisted by district officers in charge of groups of forests (except for the New Forest and the Forest of Dean, which continued to be run by deputy surveyors). The conservancies broadly covered the same geographical areas as the old divisions, with some adjustments to the boundaries.

The directorates of forestry were abolished in 1965 following the recommendation of the parliamentary Estimates Committee (Eighth Special Report from the Estimates Committee, 1964-65: The Forestry Commission, 1964-65]). Control of the conservancies passed directly to the commission headquarters (then based in London), and new national headquarters officers were established in Edinburgh and Cardiff under senior officers for Scotland and Wales to act as intermediaries between the commission and forestry and ancillary interests in those countries.

The national committees accepted terms of reference which reflected this new arrangement, becoming entirely advisory and divesting their executive functions to the Conservancies. The New Forest and the Forest of Dean continued to be managed separately under deputy surveyors until 1969 when they were attached to the relevant regional conservancies, becoming the New Forest and South East Conservancy, based at Lyndhurst, and the South West and Dean Forest Conservancy, at Bristol.

Following the relocation of the commission headquarters to Edinburgh in 1974, the Scottish national office and the post of senior officer for Scotland were abolished. A section remained at the former headquarters in London, but this did not act as a national office. The situation in Wales was unchanged.

A Management Structure Review Group examined the management structure below headquarters level again in 1981-1982, and following its report in April 1982, a decision was taken to amalgamate the existing district and forest levels of management into a single tier, the Forest District, of which there were seventy. This new structure came into force in April 1984, the Forest Districts forming a single management level within the conservancies.

A review of the workload of the conservancies followed, and these were reformed so that there were just seven: North, East and West England (based at York, Cambridge and Bristol respectively); North, Mid and South Scotland (Inverness, Glasgow and Dumfries); and Wales (Aberystwyth). The post of senior officer for Wales was abolished. Mid Scotland Conservancy was later abolished, and two enlarged North and South Scotland Conservancies were created.