The Public Record Office and the Historical Student—A Retrospect

Abstract

It is a curious coincidence that to-day should have been fixed for me to read a paper on my memories of the Public Record Office, for I entered as a junior clerk on 9 March, 1893, so that when I left the office this afternoon I had completed exactly thirty-five years' service.At that time Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte had been Deputy-Keeper for just over seven years; one volume of the Calendar of Patent Rolls (1327–30)had been published, and the late Mr. W. H. Stevenson had just finished the first volume of the Calendar of Close Rolls (1307–13). The Patent Rolls have now been completely calendared from the reign of Henry III to the end of the reign of Edward VI, and the Close Rolls to the end of the reign of Henry V, although the whole of the latter calendar has not yet been published.