Office of Works and successors: Ceremonial: Registered Files

WORK 21

1727-1987

This series contains correspondence, accounts, press cuttings, and other papers relating to arrangements for marriages, coronations, jubilees and funerals of royal persons; the thanksgiving service for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, 1872; the funerals of the Duke of Wellington, 1852, and Winston Churchill, 1965; the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, 1969, important public occasions, peace celebrations and visits by foreign royalty or heads of government.

Most of the files were registered in the AE series, although there are also a few from the AL, EG and SP series. Some earlier papers are in unregistered folders. Some files date from after the creation of the Department of the Environment and the Property Services Agency.

For related plans and drawings, see WORK 36

Records of the Lord Chamberlain's Office relating to special royal events from 1500 to 1911 are in LC 2

AE file series

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of the Environment, 1970-1997
• Ministry of Public Building and Works, Controller Generals Division, 1967-1970
• Ministry of Public Building and Works, Directorate General of Works, 1962-1967
• Ministry of Works and Buildings, Directorate of Works, 1940-1942
• Ministry of Works and Planning, Directorate of Works, 1942-1943
• Ministry of Works, Directorate General of Works, 1946-1962
• Ministry of Works, Directorate of Works, 1943-1945
• Office of Woods, Forests, Land Revenues, Works and Buildings, Works Department, 1832-1851
• Office of Works, 1378-1832
• Office of Works, 1851-1940
• Office of Works, Architects and Surveyors Division, 1902-1914
• Office of Works, Architects Division, 1914-1920
• Office of Works, Directorate of Works, 1920-1940
• Office of Works, Surveyors Division, 1901-1901

448 files, flat sheets and volumes

Open unless otherwise stated

From 2008 Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Topics

Population

Series is accruing

The Office of the King's Works and its successors were responsible for providing the structures and decorations required for major ceremonial occasions from the Middle Ages onwards, although surviving records of the Office of Works date only from the eighteenth century and later. The overall planning and organisation of most such events was the responsibility of the Lord Chamberlain's Office within the Royal Household, with which the Office of Works and its successors worked closely.