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 Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Embassy and Consulates, Union...
Catalogue reference: FO 181
What's it about?
FO 181
This series contains general correspondence of the British embassy and consulates in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (formerly the Russian Empire). There is no correspondence for the period 1921 to 1937.
Full description and record details
-
Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- FO 181
-
Title (The name of the record)
- Foreign Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Embassy and Consulates, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (formerly Russian Empire): General Correspondence
-
Date (When the record was created)
- 1801-1970
-
Description (What the record is about)
-
This series contains general correspondence of the British embassy and consulates in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (formerly the Russian Empire). There is no correspondence for the period 1921 to 1937.
-
Arrangement (Information about the filing sequence or logical order of the record)
-
Arrangement
The early part of this series has been re-arranged and those papers previously described as 'loose papers' but which had been sorted into years (FO 181/635-671; 756-941) have been identified and described, while those which were un-dated and shown as"loose papers, un-arranged" have been dated, sorted, and placed in other boxes in accordance with their date and character. A small residuum will be found at the end of the series as FO 181/1065-1066.
Throughout the catalogue for this series, papers described as being 'to' Ambassadors or their deputies are originals; those 'from' are drafts or copies of despatches sent.
-
Separated material (A cross-reference between records that are related by provenance but now kept separately)
-
Before the embassy staff were withdrawn in 1918, many post 1908 papers of certain types were destroyed. Another serious loss of embassy archives occurred in 1941 when, with the advance of the German armies, all records, confidential and otherwise, up to and including part of 1941, were burnt by embassy staff before they left for Kuibyshev.
-
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 and Russian
-
Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
-
- Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Embassy, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1968-1991
- Foreign Office, Consulate, Russia, 1800-1854
- Foreign Office, Consulate, Russia, 1856-1918
- Foreign Office, Consulates, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1924-1968
- Foreign Office, Embassy, Russia, 1800-1854
- Foreign Office, Embassy, Russia, 1856-1918
- Foreign Office, Embassy, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1924-1968
-
Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 1262 files and volumes
-
Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
- Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated
-
Immediate source of acquisition (When and where the record was acquired from)
-
(recent accessions) Foreign and Commonwealth Office Pre Soviet era records were transferred to the Public Record Office in 1926.
-
Physical condition (Aspects of the physical condition of the record that may affect or limit its use)
- Many of the records are unfit for production.
-
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))
-
- Topics
- International
- Asia
- Europe and Russia
-
Custodial history (Describes where and how the record has been held from creation to transfer to The National Archives)
- A Foreign Office letter dated 17 March 1926 (PRO 1/92) contains an account of how, in 1925, the records of the pre Soviet era embassy were discovered in a store closet in the Petrograd Embassy, in a very poor condition and without any protective bindings. The records had been in the hands of the Soviet authorities for six or so years.
-
Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
- Series is accruing
-
Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
-
In 1941, as German forces advanced, all British embassy staff in Moscow (with the exception of a few personnel) left for Kuibyshev. It was not until 1943 that the embassy was fully staffed again.
-
Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C7495/
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 181
Foreign Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Embassy and Consulates, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (formerly Russian Empire): General Correspondence
You may be interested in
-
-
Focus on
Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring
In 1938, thanks to years of work by a remarkable female agent, MI5 ensured a package of British defence plans stayed secret. -
Record revealed
The 1951 Refugee Convention
The 1951 Refugee Convention defined international obligations to refugees, but also exposed global tensions in a context of decolonisation and ongoing conflict.
Related records
Records that share similar topics with this record.