Catalogue description Public Record Office: Record Commission Transcripts, Series I

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Details of PRO 31/7
Reference: PRO 31/7
Title: Public Record Office: Record Commission Transcripts, Series I
Description:

This series consists chiefly of transcripts from the patent, close, and other rolls of the Chancery and from the parliamentary petitions, parliamentary writs and other documents made under the direction of the record commissioners, and edited by Sir Francis Palgrave with a view to ultimate publication.

They include also some transcripts of documents relating to Scotland, and a transcript of the rolls at one time preserved in the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's Department, known as Nomina Villarum, of the volume known as the Ipswich Domesday Book, and of a Custumal of Winchelsea and Sandwich .
Date: c1800-1837
Related material:

Some papers of the 1831 to 1837 Royal Commission are in PRO 30/10

Records of the Record Commission are in PRO 36
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 195 volume(s)
Publication note:

Only two volumes in four parts were published as a result of these transcriptions: Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons with Records and Muniments relating to Suit and Service to Parliament etc Vol I Edward I Vol 2 Edward II (London 1827-1834) covering the years 1272-1324. These are available on open access. Please speak to staff at the Map and Large Document Room enquiry desk for the precise location.
Administrative / biographical background:

The Record Commission is the collective name given to a series of six Royal Commissions on the Public Records appointed, with a varying membership, between 1800 and 1831. The first was appointed shortly after the presentation on 4 July 1800 of the report of a select committee appointed to inquire into the state of the public records, and the last of them lapsed on the death of William IV in 1837.

Besides publishing a considerable number of texts and other volumes drawn from the records, the Record Commission produced three general reports in 1812, 1819 and 1837. The proceedings of the commissioners became in the course of time the subject of adverse criticism, which led in 1836 to inquiries by a select committee of the House of Commons. Its report in that year included a proposal for the collection of the public records into one place under a single authority, and resulted in the Public Record Office Act 1838.

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