Central Administrative Records of the Board of Customs to 1909

This division primarily consists of central administrative records of the Board of Customs up to its amalgamation with the Excise Department of the Board of Inland Revenue in 1909. The records relate to its functions including legal, financial, statistical and personnel as well as administration of the Board of Customs' responsibilities for management of customs duties. Some series continue beyond 1909 as final records were filed for the Board of Customs during the merge and as successor bodies continued functions and recordkeeping conventions that were established by the Board of Customs.

Comprising:

• Minute books, CUST 28
• Minute entry books, CUST 29
• Correspondence, CUST 30, CUST 31, CUST 32 and CUST 33
• Registered papers, CUST 46
• Plantations papers, CUST 34
• Trade, shipping and revenue statistics, CUST 36 and CUST 37
• Copies of counsel's opinion, Solicitor's Department, CUST 41
• Other headquarters departments' records, CUST 42
• Instructions to staff, CUST 141
• Establishment records, CUST 18, CUST 19 and CUST 38, CUST 39 and CUST 40
• Coastguard records, CUST 147
• Parry Collection, CUST 143
• Miscellaneous books from the Revenue Commissioners and Boards of Customs, CUST 21
• Miscellanea, CUST 109

• Board of Customs, 1671-1909
• Board of Customs and Excise, 1909-2005
• Board of Customs, Secretarys Office, 1671-1909
• Board of Customs, Statistical Office, 1871-1909

Topics

Government finances

Taxation

Trade and commerce

A secretary of customs was first appointed in 1671. After the commissioners the secretary was the most important officer of the department, as it was through the secretary that the commissioners' connection with all aspects of customs business was maintained. Their general duties were to see that petitions were referred to the proper officers, to draft the board's reports and letters, to draw up and communicate orders and minutes at the board's direction, and to superintend the clerks in their execution of those orders.

The Secretary's Office was the chief administrative office of the department, dealing with all communications addressed to the commissioners and responsible for seeing that their orders were carried out. Originally the principal business was under the supervision of two clerks, one for northern ports and the other for western ports. Later, colonial business required a separate Plantation clerk. In the nineteenth century the main function of the Secretary's office was to co-ordinate and control the activities of the staff throughout the country. In 1849 the northern and western clerks were abolished and the business of the office was classified by subject instead of geographically.

In 1870 the Office of Inspector General of Imports and Exports was abolished. The functions of the Examiner's Office concerning check of revenue were transferred to the Comptroller General's Office, and its statistical branches became the nucleus of a new Statistical Office. The primary duty of this new department was the compilation of trade statistics from the documents connected therewith that passed through the hands of the Customs department.