Catalogue description Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Commodities and Oil Department and successors: Registered Files (MC and ML Series)

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

Date range

Details of FCO 67
Reference: FCO 67
Title: Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Commodities and Oil Department and successors: Registered Files (MC and ML Series)
Description:

This series contains records of the Commodities and Oil Department and its successors, the Commodities Department and the Oil Department. The records deal with international agreements, trade and supplies of oil, gas, strategic metals (particularly aluminium, lead, tin and zinc) and United Kingdom overseas agricultural policy and supplies of and trade in foodstuffs and other agricultural produce.

Date: 1968-1973
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: MC and ML file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Commodities and Oil Department, 1968-1969

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Commodities Department, 1969-1973

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Oil Department, 1969-1973

Physical description: 814 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
Immediate source of acquisition:

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Accruals: Series is accruing annually
Administrative / biographical background:

The Commodities and Oil Department was formed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by merging the predecessor Foreign Office Oil Department with those elements of former Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office departments which dealt with agricultural and industrial commodity questions. The new Department's role was to handle all questions relating to international agreements concerning supplies of and trade in oil and gas, industrial raw materials, and tropical and temperate zone agricultural produce. The Department was split in 1969 into separate Oil and Commodities Departments. The Oil Department handled oil and gas questions, and the Commodities Department all other commodities.

Both the departments were wound up at the end of 1972, in a general reorganisation of the business of the FCO resulting from UK membership of the European communities. The work of the Commodities Department passed to the Trade Relations Department, while the Oil Department was merged into a new Industry, Science and Energy Department.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?