Record revealed
Letters from the curator of St Vincent Botanic Gardens
Discover how plants travelled across the British Empire in the 19th century and the effect this has on our natural environment, and eating habits, today.
Series
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Political and Other Departments:...
Catalogue reference: FO 83
What's it about?
FO 83
Before 1906, when the Foreign Office's registry procedure was reorganised, the general correspondence passed to the Library when it was two years old and was there arranged for binding in a series of country series. A residue of material not...
Full description and record details
-
Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
-
FO 83
-
Title (The name of the record)
- Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Political and Other Departments: General Correspondence before 1906, Great Britain and General
-
Date (When the record was created)
-
1689-1975
-
Description (What the record is about)
-
Before 1906, when the Foreign Office's registry procedure was reorganised, the general correspondence passed to the Library when it was two years old and was there arranged for binding in a series of country series. A residue of material not relating to any one country and therefore not assignable to a specific country series makes up this 'Great Britain and General' series. With the change over to departmental series of subject files in 1906 the need for this series came to an end and it contains no records of a later date than 1905 except a collection of printed instructions, etc, to consuls and certain formal records of the Treaty and Royal Letter Department.
The series includes some volumes of correspondence of a miscellaneous nature, but the majority are 'cases', which are collections of papers on particular subjects, often covering several years, which have been retained in this form instead of being separated into their individual places within the various annual series of drafts, despatches, etc. These cases cover a wide range of subjects. Some relate to subjects of continuing interest over many years (often in sequences of several volumes); other deal with specific events or subjects of more short-lived interest; a considerable number are collections of answers to requests for information on a particular subject made of British ministers and consuls abroad for the benefit of Royal Commissions, Parliamentary Committees, other government departments, etc. They come from all departments of the Foreign Office except the Chief Clerk's and Slave Trade and African Departments.
-
Arrangement (Information about the filing sequence or logical order of the record)
-
Arrangement
Grouped into subseries corresponding to the six categories of cases: (i) General, (ii) Commercial, (iii) Consular, (iv) Legal, (v), Library, (vi) Treaty, with a separate subseries for miscellaneous correspondence. Each subseries is divided into subsubseries for specific subjects or types of document.
-
Related material (A cross-reference to other related records)
-
See also State Papers: Foreign in
-
Separated material (A cross-reference between records that are related by provenance but now kept separately)
-
Records listed in the original paper catalogue as 'starred' entries were transferred to
-
Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
-
Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
-
Public Record(s)
-
Language (The language of the record)
-
English
-
Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
-
2642 volume(s)
-
Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
-
Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
-
Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
-
Unpublished finding aids (A note of unpublished indexes, lists or guides to the record)
- Between 1810 and 1890 there are detailed registers and indexes to the miscellaneous domestic various correspondence, to the circulars and to many of the cases in FO 605
-
Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C7403/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
689,247 records
Within the department: FO
Records created or inherited by the Foreign Office
You are currently looking at the series: FO 83
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Political and Other Departments: General Correspondence before 1906, Great Britain and General
You may be interested in
-
-
Focus on
The corsair state of Rabat-Salé
On the Atlantic coast of Morocco are two cities that became one of the most substantial Islamic ports of the 17th Century. -
Record revealed
Affidavit describing the uprising of enslaved people onboard the Bedford
This affidavit is testament to the lengths enslaved African people went to in seeking their freedom.
Related records
Records that share similar topics with this record.