Ministry of Works and Buildings and successors: Construction Industry and Building...

WORK 45

1940-1980

This series contains files from the CL, RE and SCD file series of the Ministry of Works and Buildings and its successors. They relate to wartime control and peacetime sponsorship of the building, civil engineering and building materials industries by the government, with particular reference to legislation, licensing and collection of statistics. Some of the files concern the regulation of the price of building materials, the Ministry's sponsorship of the National Building Agency, the Agrément Board for the construction industry, and supplies of bricks, sand, gravel, slate and other building materials.

The series includes minutes and papers of various bodies, including: the Building Programme Joint Committee of the Advisory Council of the Building and Civil Engineering Industries, 1942 to 1945: the Central Council for Works and Buildings, 1941 to 1945; the Committee on the Brick Industry, 1941 to 1942; the National Brick Advisory Council, 1942 to 1951; Committee on the Salt-Glazed Pipe Industry, 1946 to 1953; National Council of Material Producers, 1965 to 1966; Interdepartmental Committee on the use of Building Materials Standards, 1946 to 1960; Building Materials Prices Committee, 1947 to 1949; the Working Party on the Phelps-Brown Report, 1968 to 1970; the Forbes Inquiry into the regulation of builders, 1969 to 1970; Anglo-Soviet technological co-operation and protocol, 1969 to 1970; the National Consultation Committee of the Building and Civil Engineering Industries; the Construction Industry and Government Policies Agreement Board and various standing consultative committees.

Files from the RE series, re-registered in the BL series, are in

WORK 74

CL, RE and SCD file series

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of the Environment, 1970-1997
• Ministry of Public Building and Works, 1962-1970
• Ministry of Works, 1943-1962
• Ministry of Works and Buildings, 1940-1942
• Ministry of Works and Planning, 1942-1943

728 file(s)

Open

From 1969 Ministry of Public Building and Works

Topics

Construction industries

Series is accruing

The Office of Works and its successors were closely involved in the building industry, building research and the supply of building materials during and after the Second World War.

In 1947 the Ministry of Works took over from the Ministry of Supply responsibility for the production and distribution of building materials and components. In April 1950, however, it relinquished research on the sociological and economic aspects of building to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), which also took over the ministry's Chief Scientific Advisor's Division. In March 1959, DSIR became responsible for most building research, although the Ministry of Works (later Ministry of Public Building and Works) continued to control most engineering aspects of research and development. In 1954 the system of sponsorship of building applications of other departments and co-ordination of the national building programme by the ministry was discontinued.

The Ministry of Public Building and works was the sponsoring department for the construction industry and the building materials industries. This developed from government consultations with industry during the war, 1939 to 1945, and the reconstruction period following, when it was necessary that each major industry should have one main point of contact with the government, through which issues of common interest could be discussed.