Education Department and successors: Circulars and Administrative Memoranda

ED 142

1870-1989

Circulars and administrative memoranda issued by the Education Department and successors to Local Education Authorities and other educational establishments where appropriate.

In the main, the volumes and files are arranged in chronological order but pieces 35-56 covering the years 1870-1947 are out of sequence as they were transferred at a later date.

For details on the origin of administrative memoranda see ED 23/583

The files on which circulars and administrative memoranda were drafted will be found where extant in the relevant ED series.

Public Record(s)

English

• Board of Education, 1899-1944
• Department of Education and Science, 1964-1992
• Education Department, 1856-1899
• Ministry of Education, 1944-1964

66 volume(s)

Open

Topics

Education

Circulars, and amendments and addenda thereto, are official communications. They are also public documents which express the Secretary of State's policy and give guidance on the means of carrying it out. Occasionally they are used for announcements of major even though transient importance. Where more than one department is concerned in an expression of Government policy it is usual to issue a joint circular although where this department's interest is largely procedural this may take the form of an administrative memorandum.

Administrative memoranda, and amendments and addenda thereto were introduced in 1923 to circulate House of Commons questions and answers that were of administrative interest to Local Education Authorities.

They were published annually by HMSO.