Catalogue description Board of Trade: Timber Disposal Department and predecessors: Files

On 1 March 1917 the coalfields were taken over by the government and the production, distribution and price of coal, the management and development of collieries and the employment of miners were made subject to the direction of a coal controller, who worked through a Coal Mines Department of the board. It was wound up in 1920, when its remaining functions passed to the Mines Department.

The Home Grown Timber Committee was set up in the Board of Agriculture on 24 November 1915 to increase the supply for military needs. At first its work was confined to supplying timber to the army in France. To this end it purchased woods and erected sawmills, partly by labour directly engaged for the purpose, partly by battalions of the Canadian Forestry Corps.

In April 1916 the committee was given power to acquire standing timber compulsorily, to purchase and convert standing timber, to supply such timber to government departments and generally to make arrangements for the further utilisations of native timber resources.

On the 31 March 1917 it was absorbed by the Directorate of Timber Supplies established in that month under the Finance Member of the War Office. In May 1917 the directorate was transferred to the Board of Trade where it became the Timber Supply Department under a Controller of Timber Supplies. When the war ended it was replaced by a Timber Disposal Department which disposed of the stocks and equipment remaining from its former operations. The directorate was wound up in 1922.