Catalogue description Documents and objects extracted from various record series

Details of EXT
Reference: EXT
Title: Documents and objects extracted from various record series
Description:

This is an artificial accumulation created by the Public Record Office during the twentieth century to cater for documents and objects extracted from records following transfer to the Office, primarily as a preservation measure. The most common reasons for extraction were that the item when opened exceeded the overall size of the document of which it formed part, or of other documents in the series, or that the item was of a different physical format from the document of which it formed part, or other documents in the series.

Initially two EXT series were designated; EXT 1 was entitled Large Document Extracts, Kew, and EXT 2 was entitled Safe Room Extracts, Kew. Subsequently six further EXT series were created (EXT 3 to EXT 8).

EXT 3, EXT 4 and EXT 5 contained documents from series that moved to Kew in 1977, while EXT 6, EXT 7 and EXT 8 contained documents from series that stayed at Chancery Lane between 1977 and 1997. Additions were, however, made to EXT 1 until relatively recently as well as items being placed in EXT 3, EXT 4 and EXT 5. It is not intended to add any new items to any of the EXT series.

Date: Hen II-1970s
Arrangement:

Each active series within EXT is dedicated to documents and objects extracted to a particular storage format at a particular site of production at the time the extraction was made.

No lists of the EXT series have hitherto been made available. A reader ordering an item from which an extract has been made has in the past been liable to find at the appropriate place in the box or volume a dummy stating that an item or items have been extracted and has then had to approach the repository counter to request the extract.

Production of these lists will provide the reader with clear information about the precise ordering references for extracted items. It is also intended to annotate piece descriptions in original catalogue lists with the information that items have been extracted from individual items, providing details of the relevant EXT references so that extracts may be ordered at the same time as the original documents.

Some items in the EXT series, particularly EXT 6, EXT 7 and EXT 8, are not extracts at all, but complete pieces, usually much larger and bulkier than the rest of the pieces in the record series to which they belong. They were many years ago removed to a large document room at Chancery Lane to facilitate storage and were given EXT references when the EXT series were created. All these complete pieces will, in due course, be restored to their original archival references.

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Records unless otherwise stated
Language: English
Creator:

Public Record Office, 1838-2003

Physical description: 11 series
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure

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