Catalogue description Records of the Ministry of Materials

The Ministry of Materials was established as the result of international economic conditions which seemed likely to make the procurement of raw materials very difficult for some considerable time. After the Second World War such controls as remained on raw materials were exercised by the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Fuel and Power, and the Ministry of Supply.

The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 so changed the economic and political situation that the government became convinced that it was necessary to establish a separate organisation with responsibility for the supply of raw materials. At first a Cabinet minister, the Lord Privy Seal, was given special responsibility for watching over their supply; then in July 1951, while retaining his original post, he was appointed minister of materials and provided with a new department.

The Ministry of Materials had general responsibility for the supply of raw materials up to the point at which they entered into manufacturing industry. Its power in this field was not complete. The Ministry of Supply remained the central authority concerned with iron and steel and certain other metals, although responsibility for most non-ferrous and light metals in unwrought forms, including ores and concentrates, passed from it to the Ministry of Materials. All the Board of Trade's concern with raw materials, save its responsibility for some chemicals, diamonds, and tobacco, passed to the new ministry, and the board's powers with respect to the Raw Cotton Commission were likewise transferred.

Soon after the ministry had been set up, the world trading position began to improve. Controls on raw materials were gradually removed, and by the end of 1953 private trading had been resumed in almost all the materials which had come within its power. The reason for its separate existence having disappeared, it was disbanded in August 1954, and its remaining functions were transferred to the Board of Trade.