The ARCHIVES OF TWENTIETH‐CENTURY SCIENTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS

Abstract

To start this discussion, I should like to give a brief account of the events that led to the establishment of the Joint Standing Committee on Records of Science and Technology of the Royal Society and Historical Manuscripts Commission and thus, ultimately, to proposals about the systematic preservation of the papers of present‐day scientists and technologists. In 1957 Mr Roger Ellis was appointed Secretary of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and began his efforts to get the Commission more interested in records of science and technology. It was mainly at his initiative that a Commissioner with special responsibility for this type of work was appointed in the person of Mr Roger Quirk, a scientist by training, a mediaeval scholar and archaeologist. After lengthy consultations and discussions with scientists, Mr Quirk came to the conclusion that a useful first step would be the preservation of valuable labor‐tory records when their originators retire or die. To this end the Master of the Rolls and ex officio chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Lord Denning, wrote in 1964 to all Vice‐Chancellors and Principals asking them for their help. The response was very encouraging, but because of the untimely death of Mr Roger Quirk in 1965 and the failure to appoint another ‘scientific’ Commissioner, it seemed likely that the scheme might come to nothing.