RECORD. According to Sir Edward Coke a record was "a memorial and remembrance in rolls of parchment of the proceed ings and acts of a court of justice." It was the perpetuation of the terms of a ratified transaction, whether between individuals, corporations or States. Its value was precise and utilitarian. The framers of the English Public Record Office Act of 1838, defined records as "all rolls, records, writs, books, proceedings, decrees, bills, warrants, accounts, papers and documents whatso ever of a public nature." That definition may still be accepted as adequate; indeed, its comprehensive vagueness is a virtue ; but it has to be observed in qualification, that the documents which are not strictly speaking of a public nature are often included and classified with public archives : as, for instance, the many private letters which are to be found in the English State papers.
On the other hand, a great many documents of a public nature have passed into private possession. So lax were ideas as to the proper custody of official papers before the i9th century, that it was quite usual for a minister of State leaving office to take his correspondence with him. Thus, to cite one instance out of many, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the seat of the marquess of Salisbury, there is a mass of correspondence of Lord Burghley, Queen Eliza beth's famous Lord Treasurer, and of his son the first earl of Salisbury, secretary of State both to Elizabeth and her successor, which constitutes a body of State papers of greater value than the contemporary documents of similar character preserved in the Public Record Office. The importance of making accessible to students the historical wealth of private archives was recognized in England by the appointment of the Historical Manuscripts Commission and has been a great stimulus to the foundation of learned societies in all countries. The breaking-up of the old family collections, and their frequent emigration from the land of their provenance, due to the changed economic conditions of modern times, has rendered the work of such bodies more urgently necessary than ever.
The outstanding example of the policy of centralization is Eng land and Wales.
By the Act of 1838 all separate collections in the country were brought together and placed under the charge of the Master of the Rolls, who was to appoint a deputy and a staff of assistant archivists to look after them and to define the terms on which they should be accessible to the public. Moreover, the Act em powered the Crown to bring within its scope, at discretion, any groups of documents of a public nature which were not included in the original schedule. In 1854, under an order in council made two years earlier, this provision was applied to the contents of the old State Paper Office, which had existed, in one form or another, since the 16th century and constituted a very important branch of the national archives ; and subsequently arrangements were made for the transference to the Public Record Office of the records of all Government departments, with the exception of the India Office, so soon as they should cease to be needed for admin istrative purposes.
The collection thus garnered in the Record Office, London, falls into two divisions, the judicial records and the State papers, with which latter are included the records of the various departments into which the old secretaries' offices have become differentiated. Of the former, the two most important branches are the Chancery and the Exchequer.