Public record

“ The Public Record Office is a modern building, constructed for the purpose of keeping the [Pg 120] valuable State documents and archives, which, during the present reign, have been moved from the Tower and the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. ”

“ The History of England since the Conquest runs parallel with the History of England's Records. You cannot thoroughly understand either without knowing something of the other.
Statutory definition of the Public Records. I will first of all give you the statutory definition of Public: 'They shall be taken to mean all rolls, records, writs, books, proceedings, decrees, warrants, accounts, papers, and documents whatsoever of a public nature belonging to His Majesty'. ”

“ There are abundant materials in the Record Office, beginning in the reign of Richard I, for the proof and illustration of all these matters in detail. The records themselves which have fortunately been preserved are of inestimable value for those who know how to use them, teaching us how the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas acquired their respective jurisdictions, and the relations which each bore to the other, and the Eyre to both. ”

“ VI. “At the End of every Session of Parliament, all the Public Acts are ingrossed into one great Roll by Bowyer, as Clerk of the Parliament; and the same Roll, being by him subscribed, he delivereth into the Chapel of the Rolls; which is thereupon there received, and placed among the Records of the Chancery, being the highest Record of the Kingdom, without any other Warrant than his Hand: Which Acts or Statutes so by him transcribed, do bind his Majesty’s Subjects of all Degrees for ever. ”

“ And if Parliament has thought it an object worthy of national wisdom to print the original Domesday Book at the expense of the public, which relates only to one simple period of time, it is scarcely to be imagined that the generous good sense for which our County has been remarkable, would be inattentive to the public preservation of this invaluable record; which faithfully registers the succession, not only of their property, but of their progenitors for such a length of centuries. ”

“ No nation can have advanced far on the path of civilization before discovering the necessity for documentary evidence both in public and in private life. The laws, the constitutions, the decrees of government, on the one hand, and private contracts between man and man, on the other, must be embodied in formal documents, in order to ensure permanent record. ”

“ On the Revolution, and to a less degree on the earlier period, valuable extracts have been taken from the journals, private letters, and reminiscences of those who had knowledge of public affairs. While less formal than the public records, or the careful state papers and official correspondence and arguments of the statesmen mentioned above, they have the value of unstudied testimony, and they cause an impression of the human side of the history. ”

“ These, with the legislature itself, are the departments of government in which our archives originate.
Archives we have defined as the records, the business papers, of the province having a permanent value. All archives need not be of historical value in the narrow sense. Public documents may have a business or record value apart from history, yet it would be hard to say that any given document might not be found useful in some way in connection with history. The main value of a document is as an evidence of truth. ”

“ Out of this procedure was gradually developed the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery as a Court of Equity, and the growth may be traced by a careful study of the records which have been handed down to us.
The Chancery an office of the Parliament. As soon as the Great King's Court in one sense of the term—that of the Common Council of the Realm—began to take the name of Parliament, an office of that Parliament, for the custody of its records, was the Chancery; and in this way Parliament Rolls and Statute Rolls have come into the Public Record Office. ”

“ And, of course, the record to be compiled without official interference—solely by the town council or district administration, or by a special 'board, of life and works' or some such body, provided only that the task be not carried out by nominees of the GOVERNMENT. And in that record there should be entered everything—that is to say, everything of a nature which ought to be made public concerning every man who has lived among us, and has since gone from our midst. ”

“ The examination of public records fully bears out this assertion. They frequently show a genuine respect for the life and liberty of man, and more especially a sincere commiseration for the sufferings of the poor, which before would have been sought for in vain. ”

“ Now thousands of individuals and thousands of bodies—families, clans, associations, that accomplish much in this world, go on very well without keeping any record at all of what they do. This is indisputable. On the other hand we shall see that as work is done well and carefully there is an increasing disposition to make and keep a record of results; and as the work extends in scope and complexity, the record, too, becomes more complex. ”

“ The records are overspread with fines for the violation of this requirement and with requests for dispensations from conformity to it. [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission, Report VII., App., 5; Rushworth, Historical Collections, II., App., 27, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Reports, XLIII.,151; Cal. of State Pap., Dom., 1628-1629, pp., 396, 403, etc.] A personage in an old play says of the ladies of his time, "I think they would rather marry a London jailer than a high-sheriff of a county, since neither can stir from his employment." ”

“ But the court which is best and most conveniently able to exercise the nice discretion needed to determine this balance of convenience is the one which has considered the case on its merits, and therefore is familiar with the record. Records in cases like this are often very voluminous. ”

“ Evidently all data{200} on which appointment or promotion is based should be matters of record, otherwise a perfectly well-ordered merit system cannot be demonstrated to be such to one who has a right to know; and, of course, in the last analysis, every citizen has this right in the case of a public institution.
What appeared to be needed was some regular report on the efficiency of every employee, which should be taken into account in assigning marks or in some other way, in making promotions, made in such permanent form that it could be filed as a record. ”

“ There is no doubt in my mind that some efficiency record is necessary and valuable, and that a full record, including the usual high percentage of good things with the possible proportion of bad ones, is preferable to a mere blacklist, on which only the bad is recorded. ”

“ And as we pass from this to the conduct of a business we recognize that the man who engages in commerce without keeping proper accounts is a fool and courts failure, and that the larger the business and the more widespread the interests, the more complicated and extensive must be the bookkeeping. A large commercial concern may thus employ a special department with a large staff of men simply to keep record of its financial transactions. This is probably the most ancient kind of statistical record and the one whose usefulness is most generally recognized. ”

“ Each Act is on a separate Roll numbered; and Reference is made to them from a Calendar kept of the Acts of each Session in the Parliament Office. These are the Materials from which the Clerk of the Parliaments makes up the Inrollments of Public Acts sent by him into Chancery, and preserved there; or certifies Acts into Chancery, when required so to do. [18]
As to the comparative Authority of the Original Acts and the Inrollments in Chancery, it is to be observed, that all the Original Acts are separate from each other ”

“ From the great body of records, both public and private, many fall easily and naturally into the class in which the text takes a simpler narrative form; such as judicial records, laws, decrees, proclamations, registers, &c., which tell their own story in formulae and phraseology early developed and requiring little change. ”

“ It seems on the whole to be highly probable that for a long Period of Time, Charters, Statutes, and other Public Instruments were drawn up indiscriminately in French or Latin, and generally translated from one of those Languages into the other [20] , before the Promulgation of them, which in many Instances appears to have been made at the same Time in both Languages. [21]
It is Matter of Curiosity to observe, that the Use of the French Language in Statutes was preserved rather longer in Ireland than in England. ”

“ VII. is the same as Keble’s and Pulton’s: In his Preface, Cay attributes the whole of that Translation to George Ferrers, in the Time of Hen. VIII. and speaks thus of it: “It is not a good one, and the Mistakes in it are very numerous and considerable: It has often been desired that a new Translation should be made, but as this has been used for some Ages, not only by the Public in general, but even by the Parliament, and many Statutes are recited in subsequent Acts in the Words of this Translation, it seems to be too much authenticated for an Editor to presume to reject it.” ”

“ In the 31st Year of Henry VIII. the Distinction between Public Acts and Private Acts is for the first Time specifically stated on the Inrollment in Chancery. [10] No Private Acts passed after that Date have been admitted into this Collection: It has been thought sufficient to notice them, by the Insertion of their Titles only. ”

“ For this is the true nature of a commentary (though Cæsar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name of a commentary to the best history of the world) . Registers are collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of the narration. ”

“ As keeper of the rolls he gained the name of the 'father of record reform.' It was through his unremitting perseverance that the government at last consented to provide an adequate repository for the national records. In the House of Lords he abstained from party controversy as being inconsistent with is judicial office, and devoted his time there to the prosecution of legal reforms. ”

“ Norton said last night that attempts will be made to conduct the local program later, probably within a couple of months. "We want to win people over," she said, and added, "If we save only one person it's all worthwhile."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed. ”

“ I might find a witness in every citizen who has shared in, or been attentive to, the course of public administrations. I might collect vouchers in abundance from the records and archives of every State in the Union. ”

“ As with all nineteenth-century history, the extent, the variety, and the intricacy of the various sources are simply overwhelming. The number of official records—Statutes, Orders, Circulars, Minutes, Reports, Letters, etc.—dealt with for the present small volume (although we have confined ourselves in the main to the publications of the Central Authority itself, and have not been able to consult the manuscript records and letter-books of more than a score of the Boards of Guardians) runs into, literally, tens of thousands. ”

“ Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary edicts, or the royal signatures ”

“ During the Periods in which Statute Rolls or other Parliamentary Records do actually exist, the Authentic Evidence of Statutes, (and of other Proceedings in Parliament, before the Commencement of the Journals,) must be searched for upon Statute Rolls; Inrollments of Acts; Exemplifications of such Statute Rolls or Inrollments; Transcripts by Writ into Chancery for the Purpose of such Exemplifications; Original Acts ”

“ I ask you to think of the Records not as documents which have come into existence somehow, and which somehow contain among them certain isolated matters that may give passing pleasure to persons of antiquarian tastes. I ask you to think of them as not being a mere mass of parchments and papers arranged in chronological order, in which the student of any particular period of history may find all that he wants, if only he exhausts all the documents of that period. ”

“ CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION. THE original authorities and sources of information, in manuscript and print, relating to the agitations and controversies arising within the real or assumed membership of the Church of England after the Reformation, are to be distinguished into two great classes,—those of a public character, as records of the proceedings of government, of the courts, and of all bodies or individuals in office charged with authority ”

“ It shall be the duty of the recorder to make and keep accurate records of all ordinances made by the city council, and of all their proceedings in their corporate capacity; which record shall at all times be open to the inspection of the electors of said city, and shall perform such other duties as may be required of him by the ordinances of the city council, and serve as clerk of the municipal court. ”