Explosives Inspectorate: Home Office Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee

This series is mainly composed of papers of the Home Office Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee (1946-1973), many of which are registered files from the Home Office Explosives Inspectorate XB series. Consists of minutes and papers of meetings, correspondence, and files containing reports and tests considered by the Committee.

Also included are papers inherited by the committee, which comprise minutes and papers of the earlier Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee (1935-1946) (which operated under the auspices of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research) and documents relating to its dissolution, a number of annual reports of HM Inspector of Explosives for various years from 1913 to 1974, and an index to his reports, 1876-1910.

Papers of the earlier Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee can be found in: DSIR 19

Topics

Oil and gas

Research

Weapons

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) set up the first Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee in 1935. Its terms of reference included the consideration of reports produced by the Gas Cylinders Research Committee and the Welded Containers Committee of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Reseach and other matters referred to it by the department in the light of related scientific developments and changes in industrial practice.

The committee's primary duty was the supervision of research work on behalf of the Home Office, and the framing of regulations for the manufacture and use of cylinders and containers for the transport of gases.

Following a review of DSIR research committees in 1945, the Gas Cylinders and Containers Committee was re-constituted in February 1946 as an advisory body appointed by the home secretary.

Until its abolition, the committee maintained a close liaison with the Metallurgy Department of the National Physical Laboratory. The committee operated under the control of the Explosives Department (later Explosives Inspectorate) of the Home Office General Department until 1964, when the Explosives Inspectorate became a branch of the Fire Department. The committee had ceased to function by the time of the transfer of responsibilities from the Home Office to the newly-created Health and Safety Commission in 1975.