Treasury Solicitor: Registered Files, Office of Works and successors (WORKS Series)

Selected registered files of the Treasury Solicitor relating to activities on behalf of the Office of Works and its successors, including the Ministry of Works and Buildings, the Ministry of Works and Planning, the Ministry of Works, and the Ministry of Public Building and Works. Most of the papers fall within the period 1900-1955.

The files concern the legal aspects of a broad range of building-related topics, including the construction, acquisition, maintenance and equipping of government buildings at home and overseas; and the co-ordination and development of policy in relation to civil building from 1940 onwards. The principal subjects that occur are ancient monuments and historic buildings, and legislation concerning them, public buildings, royal parks, civil building control, consulates and public buildings overseas, Town and Country Planning Acts, compulsory purchase, regulation of the brick industry, sale of former government flax factories, Crown rights, wartime measures, including requisitioning of factories and property.

TS 59 includes files from two record series. The earliest papers (TS 59/1-23) show signs of an annual registration system though this may be the result of a later re-registration. From TS 59/24 onwards the files are numbered in a simple consecutive series that continues until the end of the series. The files are in rough chronological order and there is evidence of re-registration. This second series was terminated in 1955, but papers continued to be added to existing files and new part-files were also created. In the 1940s the series prefix changed from 'WORKS' to 'WORKS 1', though this was purely cosmetic and did not affect the numbering sequence.