Catalogue description Admiralty: Miscellanea

Search within or browse this series to find specific records of interest.

Date range

Details of ADM 7
Reference: ADM 7
Title: Admiralty: Miscellanea
Description:

Various records of naval administration, navigation and other maritime matters, including:

Compilations relating to the history, administration, and rights of the Navy and the Admiralty, 1563 to 1815; memorials and reports, 1695 to 1815; law officers' opinions, 1733 to 1830; vice admiralty court regulations, 1832; legal and other case papers, 1809 to 1871.

Naval instructions and standing orders, 1660 to 1909, and records of salutes, signals, and signed stations, 1603 to 1813. Admiralty and other circulars, 1819 to 1912 . Incomplete collations of circular notices, 1819-1912, are in ADM 7/889-908 & 938.

Establishment records: some logs and letterbooks of ships, 1648 to 1740; muster books and other returns of ships and stations (but not of crews), 1651 to 1855; salary and pension books, 1694 to 1914; registers of Coastguard reports and papers, 1828 to 1911; other establishment records, 1736 to 1932.

Various registers: records relating to passes, 1683 to 1850; recruitment records, with registers of protections from being pressed, 1702 to 1840; lists and registers of convoys, 1745 to 1816; registers of letters of marque, 1777 to 1815; records of births, marriages and deaths, 1813 to 1835.

Service papers of individuals, including those of Sir Jahleel Brenton at the Cape of Good Hope, 1815 to 1830, and those of Sir Edward Hughes, 1747 to 1785; letterbooks of various officers, 1796 to 1857; Matthew Flinders' narrative of his voyage and imprisonment, 1806.

Estimates and other financial returns, 1673 to 1900.

Board Room Journals, 1796 to 1829.

Board of Revision letterbooks and minutes, 1807 to 1809.

Records relating to smuggling and prizes, 1783 to 1829.

A volume of charts, views, and descriptions of the west coast of Africa, 1682, and one of the coasts of Brazil and the Argentine, 17th century.

Documents relating to Arctic expeditions and the search for Sir John Franklin, 1845 to 1856, with papers of the Arctic Committee, 1851. Minutes and correspondence of the Antarctic Relief Committee, 1903.

Date: 1563-1956
Arrangement:

The Admiralty had been accustomed to issue circular letters to commanders in chief and others from the seventeenth century, but these letters were treated like all others, and copied in ADM 2. In the early nineteenth century it became customary to print some of these circulars, and from 1826 a numbered series of Admiralty Circulars was issued. These Circulars or Circular Orders were Board Orders, signed by two members of the Board of Admiralty, and were supplemented by Memoranda, signed only by the Secretary of the Admiralty. This distinction corresponds to that between Lords' Letters and Secretary's Letters in ADM 2. In 1877 both series were replaced by four new series of Fleet, Dockyard, Victualling and Hospital Circulars. In the 1880's the Fleet Circulars became known as Circular Letters. All these circulars were numbered, generally in annual series, but there were also un-numbered issues of various circulars with similar, or identical titles.

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 1009 bundles, files and volumes
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
Accruals: Series is accruing

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?