Admiralty Record Office

The Admiralty Record Office was a former office of the British Admiralty responsible for the collection, filing and management of all official Admiralty documents from 1809 until 1964.

History
The record office was established in the Admiralty in 1809 to only manage the collections and to devise a central system of digesting and indexing. In 1932 the Admiralty Records Office was merged within Admiralty Secretariat of the Department of the Permanent Secretary. it existed until 1964 when the Admiralty Department was abolished and merged within a new Ministry of Defence.

Responsibilities
Before world war one the Admiralty was usually divided up for administrative reasons into branches, departments, divisions and sections, they were all individually responsible for the managing and maintaining their own records, each function were supposed to send all their finished documents to the record office for filing and preservation, this however did not happen due to constant organisational changes that were common place at the Admiralty. Those branches that were outside the remit of the Admiralty Secretariat did not always adhere correctly to internal procedures resulting in a loss of crucial documents.

Example of the types of records kept
Now held at The National Archives included: ADM records go up to ADM 363 plus one additional filed ADM 900.
 * ADM 1 (Admiralty correspondence 1660-1976)
 * ADM 2 (Admiralty out-letters)
 * ADM 3 (Admiralty minutes 1657-1881)
 * ADM 4 (Admiralty: Letters Patent, Lord High Admiral and Lords of Admiralty Appointments 1707-1964)
 * ADM 5 (Admiralty and predecessors: Letters Patent, Navy Board, Transport Board, Vice-Admiralty and Commissions of Inquiry Appointments 1746-1890)
 * ADM 6 (Admiralty: Service Records, Registers, Returns and Certificates 1673-1960)
 * ADM 7 (Admiralty miscellanea 1563-1956)
 * ADM 8 (Admiralty: List Books 1673-1909)
 * ADM 9 (Admiralty: Survey Returns of Officers' Services 1817-1848)
 * ADM 10 (Admiralty: Officers' Services, Indexes and Miscellanea 1660-1933)
 * ADM 11 (Admiralty: Officers' Service Records (Series I) 1741-1903)
 * ADM 12 (Indexes and digests for 1793-1913)
 * ADM 13 (Supplementary Admiralty records 1803-1917)
 * ADM 116 (Admiralty Record Office cases 1852-1965)
 * ADM 137 (records used to compile the official history of the First World War)

Historical researchers criticisms
The Records office within the Admiralty consisted of very limited space. After it came under the responsibility of the Permanent Secretary's department a decision was taken covering three stages from 1932 to 1961 to choose what files to keep or not, this was left to records office staff, and as a result of certain behaviors of the civilian staff 98% of all routine: original and official papers were destroyed the consequence of which was an immeasurable historical loss.