Catalogue description Private office papers and private collections

Details of Division within WO
Reference: Division within WO
Title: Private office papers and private collections
Description:

Private office papers and private collections containing the papers of various Secretaries of State for War, army officers and other War Office and Army staff.

Secretaries of State for War:

  • Murray, 1828 to 1830, WO 80
  • W H Smith, 1885 to 1887, WO 110
  • Derby, 1922 to 1924, WO 137
  • Hore-Belisha, 1937 to 1940, and Grigg, 1942 to 1945, WO 259
  • Kitchener, WO 159

Army officers:

Other:

  • Permanent under secretaries of state of the War Office, Second World War, WO 258
  • Various private collections, WO 79
  • Thomas Archer, principal clerk of Treasury Commissariat Department, WO 77

Date: 1709-1990
Related material:

For private war diaries of officers, 1939 to 1945, see WO 217

Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 26 series
Administrative / biographical background:

Until more stringent rules were introduced comparatively recently, Secretaries of State for War (and the colonies) took their Private Office papers away with them on leaving office.

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