Views: Series One

ADM 344 Series One

Views: Series One

1743 - 1972

The main series of views are held in a series of 50 composite volumes known as ‘view folios’. These have their origins in 1823 when Lieut. AB Becher started listing the ‘original documents’. He inserted the smaller views and sketches in 'View Portfolios' that were later migrated into geographically arranged view albums.

Prior to the 2000s, the main way of accessing these records was by a geographical finding aid. An Admiralty chart of the world was divided into regions showing the limit of each folio.

A list of the coverage of the albums made in the 1920s COD 7/1. A complete calendar of the contents of the view folios was prepared by Mr G Hannaford at Taunton prior to their transfer to The National Archives. On their arrival at The National Archives in 2008 the leaves were removed from their twentieth-century albums, but their arrangement has been preserved. Each leaf is a separate piece within the series. Many pieces include more than one item and many views have no date upon them. A copy of this catalogue is stored as COD 7/3.

In addition to these folios are some loose pages which appear to have been taken out of their folio. Although the folios have already been transferred to TNA these loose pages need to be catalogued and reunited with the appropriate folio. Therefore in 2017 the loose pages were catalogued and given the consecutive number following on from the last piece in ADM 344. Starting at 2758 there are 9 pieces. A record was kept of pages that were removed from the view folios or albums COD 7/2. It is not clear exactly how this system worked, or if all of the pages that are listed were ever returned and have since been lost.

See also: some views may also be found in Ships' Remark Books MP, CRB, IRB

See Adrian Webb's 'Guide to the views in the UK Hydrographic Office Archive' (2017) for more information

c. 10 linear metres, 50 boxes, 21 plan press drawers