Abstract
THEWESTYORKSHIRE ARCHIVE SERVICEcame together as a joint service in April 1982. It was formed jointly by the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council and the Metropolitan District Councils of Bradford, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield. In April 1983 Calderdale Metropolitan District completed the District Council representation. The establishment of the joint service was the culmination of eight years of discussion and negotiation between the local authorities in West Yorkshire, the progress of which is described fully by Mrs Elizabeth Berry, the first Archivist to the Joint Committee, in a forthcoming article. 1It represented a considerable milestone in the improvement of services to both owners and users of documents and enabled the long process of equalization of provision for archives throughout the county to begin. From 1982 to 1986 the West Yorkshire Archive Service was administered on behalf of the West Yorkshire Archive Joint Committee by West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, which contributed over fifty per cent of the revenue and paid for all development, the five Metropolitan District Councils contributing their existing archive budgets. The service has always been decentralized. The headquarters are in the former West Riding Registry of Deeds building in Wakefield. From 1974 to 1982 this was the West Yorkshire County Record Office, set up by West Yorkshire County Council on its formation as statutory archive authority for the new county. 2 (The former West Riding County Council had been one of the few counties in England not to establish a county record office.) In 1976the West Yorkshire County Council entered into an agreement with the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, a large county society founded in 1863 and having its own headquarters in Clarendon Road, Leeds which house a considerable library and important collections of archives for all parts of historic Yorkshire. Under this agreement the County Council supplied an archivist and clerical assistant to run the Society's archives. The Society's premises now include one of the six
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