Records of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department

Division within FO

1695-2004

Contains records of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department and successors. Correspondence of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department from 1906 is in FO 372. Entry books to royal letters are in FO 90. Original treaties are in FO 93 and FO 94, with multi-lateral treaties in FO 949 and European Communities treaties in FO 974. Registered files concerning honours and awards to members of the Diplomatic Service and others are in FO 1089

From the beginning of 1950 a revised filing system was adopted by the Foreign Office. This system was based on:

• i) an initial letter (or letters) indicating the Department concerned
• ii) a file number
• iii) a further number indicating the particular paper in the file

Departmental index letters:

• T - Treaty
• T - Miscellaneous
• TA - Postal Agreements
• TC - Civil Procedure
• TD - Decorations and Awards
• TE - Extradition
• TF - Treaty Formalities
• TH - Commonwealth
• TK - Appointments: Consular
• TL - Lunatics
• TM - Marriages
• TN - Nationality
• TP - Privilege
• TR - Royal Matters
• TS - Deportations
• TT - Appointments: Diplomatic
• TW - Territorial Waters

Treaty correspondence, 1883-1905 is amongst the country series of general correspondence.

Public Record(s)

English

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Protocol and Conference Department, 1968-1982
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Protocol Department, 1983-1983
• Foreign Office, Protocol Department, 1951-1962
• Foreign Office, Protocol, Treaty and Nationality Department, 1962-1968
• Foreign Office, Treaty and Nationality Department, 1953-1962
• Foreign Office, Treaty and Royal Letter Department, 1854-1951

7 series

Topics

Treaties and alliances

The functions of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department were to prepare the formal documents of diplomatic representation and treaty negotiation, to deal with matters of protocol and to engross treaties; it was not concerned with the actual negotiation of treaties. The appointment of a clerk to deal specifically with these functions dates from 1813 and he was given an assistant in 1817.

Between 1841 and 1854 the superintendence of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department was one of the duties of the chief clerk, but in 1854 the department was established as a separate entity.

In addition to its responsibilities for formal documents, it dealt with British and foreign orders and medals, shipwreck and honorary awards, precedence, diplomatic privilege, presents, foreign titles of nobility and letters of introduction. By 1882 extradition and naturalisation and copyright and consular conventions had been added. In 1891 free deliveries, consular commissions and exequaturs, and passports (which were dealt with in a separate Passport Office) were taken over from the Chief Clerk's Department; in 1894 postal, telegraph and railway unions and conferences and postal treaties and arrangements were taken over from the Commercial Department in exchange for trade marks, patents and copyright.

At the beginning of the First World War the department became responsible for Prize Court matters (until a separate Prize Court Department was established), for questions arising from the laws of neutrality, for the treatment of British armed merchant vessels and for the treatment of aliens (until a separate Prisoners of War and Aliens Department was formed).

In 1951 the department became the Protocol Department and in 1953 it was divided into a Protocol Department and a Treaty and Nationality Department. In 1962 this decision was reversed and a single Protocol, Treaty and Nationality Department was formed.