Records of the Privy Council Office

Division within PC

1660-1997

Records of the Privy Council Office as the secretariat of the Privy Council.

The main series of registered correspondence (from 1860) is in PC 8 and PC 12, with indexed registers in PC 9. Later series of registered files by subject are in PC 14 (Colonial Files); PC 15 (Charter Files); PC 16 (Statutory Instrument Files); PC 17 (University Appointments Files); PC 18 (General Appointments Files); PC 19 (Burials Files); PC 20 (Privy Counsellor Files); and PC 21 (Royal Matters Files).

Entry books of out-letters are in PC 7 and there is a miscellaneous series of registers and entry books of correspondence in PC 6.

Sheriffs' rolls and lists are in PC 3 and PC 13.

Records of various commissions, committees and the Court of Claims deposited with the Privy Council Office for safekeeping are in PC 10.

Further correspondence is among the unbound papers in

PC 1

Public Record(s)

English

15 series

Topics

Official publications

The Privy Council Office undertakes most of the administrative work of the Privy Council and its committees, with a Registrar having special responsibility for the work of the Judicial Committee; the residue is carried out by the Office of the Lord President of the Council. Under the direction of the Lord President the Privy Council Office is headed by the Cerk of the Council, and the development of the office was bound up closely with these two posts. The post of Lord President emerged in the late fifteenth century and developed considerably under the Tudors.