Series
Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds: Papers
Catalogue reference: PRO 30/32
Date: 1661-1717
By far the greater part of this collection consists of certain official records of the administration, as Lord High Treasurer (from June 1673...
Series
Prime Minister's Office: Sir Desmond Morton, Personal Assistant to Prime Minister:...
Catalogue reference: PREM 7
What's it about?
PREM 7
This series contains papers of Sir Desmond Morton, personal assistant to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, from 1940 to 1945.
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- PREM 7
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Title (The name of the record)
- Prime Minister's Office: Sir Desmond Morton, Personal Assistant to Prime Minister: Correspondence and Minutes
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1939-1951
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Description (What the record is about)
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This series contains papers of Sir Desmond Morton, personal assistant to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, from 1940 to 1945.
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Arrangement (Information about the filing sequence or logical order of the record)
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Arrangement
Loose chronological order
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- English
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Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- Morton, Desmond John Falkiner, 1891-1971
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 17 file(s)
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Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
- Open unless otherwise stated
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Immediate source of acquisition (When and where the record was acquired from)
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From 1976 Prime Minister's Office
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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- Topics
- Personal and family papers
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Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
- Series is accruing
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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Major Sir Desmond John Falkiner Morton (1891-1971) entered the Foreign Office as an intelligence officer in 1919 following a distinguished military service during which time he came to the notice of Winston Churchill. He formed a personal friendship with Churchill, assisting him with The World Crisis (5 vols, 1923-1931). Throughout the 1930s, he was Churchill's close adviser, In 1932, he obtained the permission of the Prime Minister (Ramsey MacDonald) to provide Churchill with certain confidential reports and information. This arrangement was subsequently endorsed and continued by the two succeeding Prime Ministers (Baldwin and Chamberlain), and was of considerable value to Churchill's campaign for British rearmament.
In May 1940, on becoming Prime Minister, Churchill made Morton his personal assistant, a role which Morton continued throughout the Second World War. During this period, he filtered information to Churchill received from breaching of the German 'Enigma' cipher.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C11900/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
36,713 records
Within the department: PREM
Records of the Prime Minister's Office
You are currently looking at the series: PREM 7
Prime Minister's Office: Sir Desmond Morton, Personal Assistant to Prime Minister: Correspondence and Minutes
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