Catalogue description British Museum (Natural History): Director's Office: Director's Subject Files

Among the earliest papers in the series are ten files in which S F Harmer kept selected papers and correspondence which seemed to be of importance. Papers are filed chronologically from 1919 to 1927 and are numbered up to 1473, with an unnumbered file of wartime enquiries, 1917-1918. The registers and annotation are in Harmer's own hand. Papers cover a wide range of Museum topics, including Tanganyika dinosaurs, loan regulations, labourers and vacuum cleaners, the new whale room, the Scott Antarctic Fund, and relations with the Geological Survey and Museum.

The remainder of the series is largely made up of unregistered files kept by T C S Morrison-Scott and G F Claringbull from 1960 onwards, with only a few papers of earlier directors. Among the topics covered are relations with institutions such as the British Museum, the Powell-Cotton Museum, Birchington, Kent; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Other files relate to particular activities within the Museum, such as electron microscopy, exhibition preparation, oceanography, palynology, and serology. There are files on honours and awards to Museum staff, on the appointment of Trustees and on the Zoological Museum, Tring.

Series held at The Natural History Museum are catalogued more fully in its online catalogue (reference DF DIR/933). Online descriptions of some individual records can also be viewed on Discovery, see DF 933.

The main bulk of the working papers and correspondence of successive directors are contained in either:

DF 1000

DF 1004

The series was transferred to the Archives from 1982 onwards.

DF 933/1-10 have contemporary registers of contents.