Catalogue description Board of Trade: Mercantile Marine Department: Foreshores Files

These are records of the Mercantile Marine Department of the Board of Trade, which passed to the Commissioners of Crown Lands in 1950 when foreshore responsibilities returned to them.

The files in this series refer to applications for using the foreshores at Folkestone, Blackpool, Port Erin (Isle of Man) and Stornoway for seaplane flights or aerodromes, a request to remove pebbles from the beach at Aldeburgh and Shingle Street, Suffolk, a proposal to deposit at Rosneath Patch material dredged from the Clyde and from Shieldhall Dock works, sales of estates in Northern Ireland adjoining tidal waters and the procedure to be followed by the Land Purchase Commission, Northern Ireland, until the termination of its agency work for the Board of Trade, the transfer of the Quit Rent Office to the control of the Irish Free State, the responsibility for fishing interests in Northern Ireland on the closure of the Office of the Imperial Secretary, and a suggestion to alleviate the unemployment problem in Scotland by undertaking sea defence work.

Much of the correspondence on the files is with other government departments, local authorities and coast guards, and some files contain maps.

The main series of Board of Trade files relating to foreshores, that is Harbour Department files until 1919, then Marine or Mercantile Marine Department files until 1937, are preserved in:

For other Crown foreshore files see BT 297

MT 9

MT 10

Board of Trade, Mercantile Marine Department, 1921-1939