Catalogue description Records of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts

The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts was established by Royal Warrant of 2 April 1869 under the chairmanship of the Master of the Rolls. It was empowered to make enquiry into the location of collections of manuscripts and papers of historical, scientific and literary interest, with the consent of the owners to make catalogues of them, and to report its proceedings.

During the first ninety years of its existence the Commission was housed at the Public Record Office and the Deputy Keeper of Public Records acted as the executive commissioner. This arrangement ceased in 1958 and the Commission moved to its own premises in Quality Court, Chancery Lane in 1959.

In conjunction with the changes brought about by the Public Records Act 1958 the Commission was reconstituted by Royal Warrant of 5 December 1959 with much enlarged terms of reference. It is now charged to make enquiry as to the existence and location of all historical records in the United Kingdom of value for the study of history which lie outside the Public Records Act, to inspect, report upon and publish them, to record their particulars in a national register, to advise on general matters concerning them, to promote their preservation and the co-ordinated action of other bodies in the field, and to assist those wishing to use such records for study. It also acquired for the first time a statutory duty, by which the Master of the Rolls exercises through the Commission his responsibilities under the Law of Property (Amendment) Act 1924 and the Tithe Act 1936 for manorial and tithe documents, which he had formerly exercised through the Public Record Office.

Since 1870 the Commission has published over two hundred volumes of printed reports and calendars relating to documents of historical importance in many separate collections. These have been added to by a recent series of subject based guides, published since the 1960s.

In 1945, in pursuance of the recommendations of the Master of the Rolls' archives committee, the National Register of Archives (NRA) was set up under the Commission to carry out a more comprehensive survey of all privately owned collections and papers. This was done in conjunction with local voluntary county committees, who reported to the registrar and, increasingly, with county archivists

Since 1959, the NRA has been developed as the central collection, storage and retrieval point for information about records relating to British history. In 1998 it contained more than 42,000 unpublished reports and lists of collections of historical papers in private and public hands in the United Kingdom and overseas. The reports are available for consultation by the public in the Commission's search room. Additionally, the computerised indexes to the NRA are available both in the search room and on the internet.