Records of the Directorate of Tube Alloys and related bodies

Division within AB

1939-1958

Records relating to the Directorate of Tube Alloys, established in 1941 to research the development of the atomic bomb, and to other predecessors of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

These include papers of the MAUD Committee, files of the Directorate of Tube Alloys, and records of the British Commonwealth Scientific Office in Washington and of the Anglo-Canadian project, in AB 1. Project reports of the Anglo-Canadian project at Montreal and Chalk River are in AB 2 and AB 5, and papers concerning atomic research carried out at the Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, are in AB 3. Other reports and papers on atomic energy research in Britain during the war of 1939-1945 in AB 4

Engineering drawings for the Chalk River Laboratories are in AB 5

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Directorate of Tube Alloys, 1941-1945
• Ministry of Aircraft Production, MAUD Committee, 1939-1941
• Ministry of Supply, Directorate of Tube Alloys, 1945-1958

5 series

Topics

Nuclear energy

Research

Weapons

Operations, battles and campaigns

Responsibility for the development of the atomic bomb in the UK during the early years of the second world war was decentralised and loosely directed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In November 1941, on the recommendation of the MAUD committee of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, investigation into atomic research and development became the responsibility of a new organisation within the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. This new body was given the cover name of the Directorate of Tube Alloys.

Ministerial responsibility for atomic research and development lay with Sir John Anderson, who as Lord President of the Council was in charge of the department and a number of other scientific organisations, and under his chairmanship, a Tube Alloys Consultative Council was set up.

In December 1945, responsibility for atomic energy research was transferred to the Ministry of Supply, and the Directorate of Tube Alloys became the Atomic Energy Division of the Ministry of Supply.