Catalogue description Ministry of Information: Home Intelligence Division (HI) Files

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Details of HO 262
Reference: HO 262
Title: Ministry of Information: Home Intelligence Division (HI) Files
Description:

Home Intelligence Division files of the Ministry of Information. Although originating in the Ministry of Information, these files came into the possession of the Home Office and have therefore been treated as a Home Office series.
Date: 1939-1946
Related material:

Other Home Intelligence Division Files of the Ministry of Information are in:

Subseries within INF 1
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: HI series files
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

Ministry of Information, 1939-1946
Physical description: 17 file(s)
Access conditions: Subject to closure for periods up to 75 years
Administrative / biographical background:

The Ministry of Information was formed in 1939, taking over some of the powers of the Home Secretary: its Home Intelligence Division was responsible for reporting on public attitudes and morale and was in close touch with the Intelligence Branch of the Ministry of Home Security which had itself grown out of the Air Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office and which continued to depend on the Home Office for legal, establishment and public relations services.

This close contact between the two sections and the relationship each had to the Home Office may explain why when the two ministries wound up in 1945-6 and their functions were in part reintegrated into the Home Office, some of the Home Intelligence files remained distinctly Ministry of Information and some that were possibly expected to be of continuing interest to the Home Office were reregistered there.

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