General Secretary's copy out-letter files

In the experience of the Centre, it is generally rare for trade union correspondence to have survived, other than current and recent non-current files which might be required for administrative purposes. Exceptions to this experience have been generally small in scope, limited to such archive phenomena as the incorporation of letters considered by committees in relevant minute files and chance preservation of correspondence of a small union such as the Federation of Sailmakers. The survival of an extensive series of ring binders of out-letter 'flimsies' from the office of the General Secretary of the ASCJ and its successor the ASW, was therefore doubly welcome, as an indication of the concerns of these important constituents of UCATT and as evidence in general terms of the conduct of trade union business over a long and significant period incorporating part of the Great War and the whole of the 2nd World War. Although the in-letters to which this correspondence is a reply do not appear to have survived, the evidence provided by this cut-letter series is sufficiently comprehensible to merit its preservation and the preparation of some kind of finding aid.