Catalogue description Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Royal Society and Historical Manuscripts Commission Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological Records: Minutes, Papers and Correspondence

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Details of HMC 6
Reference: HMC 6
Title: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Royal Society and Historical Manuscripts Commission Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological Records: Minutes, Papers and Correspondence
Description:

Agenda, minutes of meetings, correspondence and other papers of the Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological Records, set up in 1967 to collect and publish information about papers of eminent British scientists active before 1940. The series also includes records relating to a pilot study on the papers of contemporary scientists, and to the subsequent establishment of the Contemporary Archives Centre in Oxford.
Date: 1962-1979
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Historical Manuscripts Commission Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological Records, 1967-1976

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1869-2003

Royal Society, 1660-
Physical description: 13 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure
Publication note:

When the Committee was wound up in 1976, responsibility for publishing its guide, The Manuscript Papers of British Scientists 1600-1940 was passed to the Historical Manuscripts Commission which published it in 1982.
Administrative / biographical background:

The Joint Committee was set up by the Royal Society and the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) in 1967. Its remit was to examine the existing arrangements in the UK for "locating, preserving and making available records and documents (including personal correspondence) of value for the history of science and technology", and to make recommendations for action to the Royal Society and the HMC.

Its first chairman was Sir Harold Hartley, who was followed by Professor Nicholas Kurti in 1970.

The Committee's principal activity was gathering and publishing information about the surviving papers of British Scientists active before 1940, which was done by two editors reporting to an Editorial Sub-committee.

The Joint Committee also took an interest in preservation of the papers of contemporary British scientists and engineers. A pilot study was carried out which resulted in the setting up of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre in Oxford, which located and processed such papers before passing them on to other repositories.

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