Solicitors' correspondence relating to Hampton Wick Roman Catholic Church, dealing with a mortgage on the property and with Land Value Duties, 1909-1912, including three letters from the Right Reverend Monsignor Maurice E. Carton de Wiart, Treasurer to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

Records relating to the management of bridges in London, 1664-1990, including petitions; reports; financial papers; legal papers; publications; press releases; papers relating to building and maintenance; title deeds relating to Staines Bridge and papers relating to proposals to build 'St Paul's Bridge', abandoned at the outbreak of World War One.

Also papers, 1868-1890, relating to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Metropolitan Bridges which worked to free all bridges over the Thames and Lea from tolls, including papers on the Staines Bridge, Walton Bridge, Hampton Court Bridge, Kingston-on-Thames Bridge, Kew Bridge, Chingford Mills Bridge, Hellyer's Ferry Bridge and Tottenham Mills Bridge.

Records of the Royal Contract Estates, 1297-1774, including papers relating to the state of the estates; papers relating to the debts of King James I and King Charles I; papers relating to the sale of the various estates; indentures; financial accounts; surveys of various estates; auditors' certificates of the total rents of the manors and lands; law suits; committee papers and deeds.

Corporate records of Army, Navy and General Assurance Association Limited, including incorporation certificates; memorandum, articles of association and guarantee agreements; board of directors' minute and agenda books; committee agenda book; annual general meetings: notice, proposed articles and special resolutions passed; annual reports; registers of directors and secretaries; and seal book.

Financial and accounting records of the Allied Traders Insurance Company including journal, private ledger, and liquidator's report.

Business records of Eagle Insurance Company including indexes of lives assured; individual life policies, assignments and related correspondence; life prospectuses, specimen proposal forms, medical reports and related papers; premium receipts and cheques; Eagle fund annual accounts, quinquennial reports and related papers; fire policies; newspapers, press cuttings and advertisements relating to Eagle Star; prospectuses for foreign business; and correspondence from Bristol branch.

Business records of Eagle Star Insurance Company, including papers relating to marine, fire, motor, life, pluvius and general insurance; papers relating to war loan, branches, agents and overseas organisation; and publicity material.

Premises records of Eagle Star Insurance Company, including papers, correspondence, plans and photographs relating to office premises, branches in England and Scotland, and property investments.

Corporate records of Fred Haigh and Company Limited comprising memorandum and articles of association, board of directors' minute book.

Corporate records of the Home and Overseas Insurance Company Limited comprising annual reports and accounts, and amalgamation papers.

Business records of the London Mutual Life and Guarantee Society comprising policy for Mark Lemon; unused proposal, policy and related forms, and list of medical referees.

Corporate records of Liverpool Reversionary Company Limited including board of directors' draft and signed minutes, audited accounts, register of directors and secretaries, and file relating to corporate exemption under Moneylenders Act.

Business records of Palladium Life Assurance Society including propectuses; life instruction book; proposals; re-registrations of judgements on Irish cases; contents of 'Box 1299, including stamped letters, prospectuses, proposal forms, receipts, copies of Post Magazine, letter books and other papers; newspaper reports and papers relating to 'Box 1299'; and advertisement.

Business records of Publishers and General Insurance Company Limited comprising specimen policies.

Shares records of Philatelic Insurances Limited including register of members and directors, with transfers; share transactions; share certificate counterfoils; and register of directors' shareholdings.

Corporate records of Sceptre Life Association Limited including board of directors minutes, reports of proceedings at annual general meetings, and annual reports and accounts.

Business records of Star Life Assurance Society Limited including policy registers; policies and papers relating to individual policies; prospectuses and almanacs; endowment rates; specimen bonuses; rate books; fund: accounts, reports, stock exchange transactions, ledgers, journals, correspondence and papers; aircraft insurance policy; diaries; agents' instructions and commission rates; prospectuses for overseas business; Australia: letters and share certificates; South Africa: details of annual bonuses, correspondence, rate books; and Star bookmarks.

Staff records of Star Life Assurance Society Limited including papers and correspondence relating to Jesse Hobson and J.D. Watson.

Business records of Star Fire Insurance Company including fire policies and Secretary's receipt to agent.

Business records of Star Assurance Society Limited comprising specimen policy: Fine Arts.

Financial records of Theatres Mutual Insurance Company Limited including papers relating to war bonds and cash book.

Corporate records of Trent Insurance Company Limited including agreements, board of directors' minute book, and reinsurance agreements with Eagle Star.

Minute books of the Bridge House Trust Committee (also called the Bridge House Grants Committee), Court of Common Council, 1995-2006. Please note that these records are closed until 2030.

Records of the Enquiries into the Constitution of the Corporation Committee, Court of Common Council, including minute books and papers, 1837-1840; minute book and papers, including Police Rate Assessments and returns of wards with lists of municipal election voters, 1852-1853 and minute books and papers, 1856-1861.

Minutes and papers of various small, temporary committees of the Court of Common Council, 1668-1990. The Committees were formed to consider various matters including the election, remuneration and behaviour of officers and staff of the Corporation of London; consideration of the effects of various Parliamentary Acts and Bills; the historical rights and privileges of the City of London; the provision of cemeteries; parishes and benefices; metage, particularly of coal and corn; the reform of the Corporation; markets; building maintenance and preservation; debtors, insolvency and bankruptcy; the Gresham bequest; food imports; transport including railways; presentation of the Freedom to William Pitt; militia; the erection of monuments and statues; the funerals of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and Horatio, Viscount Nelson; legacies and bequests; care of orphans; poor relief; estate management; schools and libraries; City finances; water and gas supply; Port of London; sewers; regulation of trade and licensing; street lighting; prisons and compters.

Also papers relating to the general organisation and running of Court of Common Council Committees, including the decision to allow public and press to attend certain committees, 1974; lists of committee Chairmen and members for various years; committee books, 1690-1727 and 1813-1990; bills books, 1873-1884; notes on the historical powers of the Court of Common Council and the Court of Aldermen and notes on the streamlining of committees and administration, 1835-1965.

Records of Rates Finance Committee, Court of Common Council, comprising minutes, 1936-1968 and committee papers, 1948-1957. Please note that minutes 1930-1936 were destroyed by enemy action.

Records of the Revenue and Officers Committee, Court of Common Council, including minutes, 1835-1838; Revenue Committee reports, 1836; returns of Officers' salaries, 1835-1836; attendances and allowances, 1833-1836; expenses of Mayoralty, 1835 and expenses of Mayor's household, 1835-1836.

Records of the Special Finance Committee, Court of Common Council, including papers, minute book, rough minutes, Chairman's book, and printed report on the Income and Expenditure of the Corporation (13 Dec 1888), 1887-1889.

Records of the Special Revenue Committee, Court of Common Council, including minute book, Chairman's Book, rough minutes, papers, financial accounts, estimates and reports, 1857-1958.

Records of the Paget family relating to the manors of West Drayton, Dawley, Harlington and Harmondsworth, and properties owned by the family in London, Westminster, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Surrey. The papers include court rolls and books; court papers; customs; estate and financial management; court fines and estreats; wages; rentals; tenancy lists; surveys, valuations and inventories; maps and plans; enclosure records; tithe records; sales particulars; correspondence and muniments of title.

Also papers relating to household management such as bills, receipts, inventories, valuations, insurance and correspondence; genealogies and pedigrees; business papers; records relating to appointments and commissions; personal financial accounts; diaries and legal papers.

Mortgage and lease for Paradise Terrace, Milton Road, Hornsey, 1853 and 1855; leases for property in Shepperton; copies of court roll for Isleworth Syon Manor relating to parcel of land in Grosvenor Road, Twickenham with two messuages, stables, coach houses and buildings known as Grosvenor House and Grosvenor Cottage; and deed of composition and release releasing Joseph Blake of Harrow, linen draper, from his debts.

Records of the Royal Commercial Traveller's School, 1845-1965, including a photograph of a painting of John Robert Cuffley; copy of minutes of a Meeting held at the London Tavern on 30th December 1845 concerned with the founding of this school; a brief record of principal events from 1845 to 1905; press cuttings; papers relating to Royal patronage of the School; papers relating to fundraising; copy of a speech delivered by Charles Dickens about the Schools in December 1859; event programmes; copies of the rules of the Foundation; Memorandum of Articles of Association of the Royal Commercial Travellers Schools Trust Limited; annual reports 1945-1967; prospectus and photographs of the buildings at Hatch End, Pinner.

Papers of John William Couchman and Harold Seymour Couchman, surveyors, agents to the lords of the manors of Tottenham and Edmonton and civil engineers, 1789-1938. The majority of the papers are those of John William Couchman who was a civil engineer (in particular, apparently, a waterworks expert) and a surveyor and valuer, but a few later ones relate to his successor, Harold Seymour Couchman.

John William Couchman acted as surveyor and agent to the lords of the manors of Tottenham and Edmonton. Most of the manorial documents are valuations for enfranchisement of copyhold property. These cover the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and are arranged alphabetically under the names of the copyholders. There is also, however, a survey of Tottenham manor of circa 1830 and two rentals of quit and waste rents for Tottenham and one for Edmonton, together with correspondence with the local urban district councils over their purchase of manorial waste.

The remainder of the collection consists of documents concerning property of the Sperling family and of others for whom Couchman acted as agent; his own papers relating to various engineering projects - notably that to provide a drinking water supply for Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, papers concerning the Tithe rent charges for Tottenham (for which he acted as valuer), various sales particulars including one of 1789 for Bruce Castle and Mount Pleasant, and two albums of photographs taken at the end of the last century which are of considerable interest.

This exceptionally interesting collection consists of the archives of a London business family, the Howards, and their relations by marriage, the Eliots. The family were based in London, with homes in the City and various places round about, but they also had property and connections in several other parts of England.

The chief interest of the collection is in its quality as the personal record of a group of prosperous manufacturing and merchant families who were members of the Society of Friends. The Eliots were merchants and their account books, which cover both business and private expenses, together with letters and memoranda, reflect a picture of "City" life in the Eighteenth century. They attended the Change, Lloyd's and Child's and Jonathan's and other Coffee Houses, and dealt with a variety of business including trade overseas in cotton and duck cloth and Cornish tin and invested in "a voyage to Lima" and other merchant shipping ventures (including that of the Tuscany, unfortunately "Taken by the French and carried into Marseilles" in 1757). (See especially numbers 905, 928, 929, 944, etc.).

There is interesting material relating to John Eliot's estates supplemented by John Eliot's letters (e.g. Numbers 988-1011), which also mention a "good season" for pilchards, the decline of the docks at Topsham, the appropriation by the Government of some sugar pans near Exeter to use for French prisoners, etc. John's sister Mariabella also purchased in 1765 Pickhurst Farm, Hayes, Kent (Nos. 376-475).

There are amongst this collection a few letters and papers of later Howards, including an interesting pocket diary in which Samuel Lloyd Howard, grandson of Luke, jotted (unfortunately rather roughly in pencil) memoranda and sketches of impressions of his visit to America in 1854 (No. 1618). At sea his ship rescued the crew of the Hannay of Whitehaven, loaded with salt and flying a distress signal-"lay to and took all off, boy, baggage, chronometer, barometers and all".

At all periods the family kept in close touch with their relations in all parts of the country, including the Hows of Aspley, Bedfordshire, the Paces of Westmorland and London, the Leathams of Yorkshire as well as with fellow Quakers. This gives the collection a national rather than a local interest-indeed the family were not primarily associated with any one locality.

A curious document amongst the collection is a receipt dated 1824 for 8. 15s from R. Smith for freeing Hamma Fie, slave to Bentoo Demba, and signed with the mark of Madeba, Alcaide of "Birkow" (No. 1617/p.12). The Society of Friends Committee for African Instruction supported some missions, and Richard Smith, a friend of Luke Howard, was in Africa in the 1820's.

Quaker marriage certificates, of which there are several examples (eg. Nos. 117, 565, 1273, 1274, etc) give full details of both parties and are signed by members of the Meeting as witnesses. Birth certificates (e.g., Nos. 1275-1286, 1390-1393) give the date of birth and name, and were signed by witnesses to the baby's birth. The Society of Friends was in advance of both the State and established Church in respect of such documentation.

Records of the church of Saint Margaret, Uxbridge, comprising the foundation charter of a perpetual chantry for one chaplain [Walter Shiryngton?], 1459.

Assessed tax accounts for the New Brentford and Uxbridge Districts.

Records of Joshua Alexander, solicitor and property developer, recording the drawing up of building agreements and the granting of leases of the resulting houses. None of the agreements or leases survive but the pattern of development can be traced through the accounts of advances for building and the ground rents received for leases.

Building agreements and lease books: These books record cash advances made by Joshua Alexander and his business partner William Bradshaw under building agreements for the development of their various estates. When leases were granted of newly erected houses, ground rents received under them were likewise recorded. Apart from including names of lessees and addresses of property leased, the books are heavily annotated with references to court proceedings, assignments of interests and other actions necessary for administrating estates. Each book is indexed under names of tenants.

Rentals: These record the payment of ground rents by lessee of houses on the various estates described above. Each rental is arranged by estate and contains name and address of lessee or assignee, address of property rented, amount of ground rent due and summaries of totals..

Letter books: family and personal letters. Copies of letters from Lionel Alexander of personal and family nature, many concerning involvement with Jewish institutions, charities and general affairs, also copies of letters to press and articles.

Records of the Prudential Assurance Company relating to property, 1882-1947, including draft and copy deeds, abstracts of title, agreements, contracts, plans, correspondence and other papers regarding ground rents in Croydon, Westminster, Holborn, City of London, Teddington, Winchmore HIll, Tooting, Fulham, Muswell Hill, Hornsey and Richmond.

Financial records of the Blue Nile Brewery Limited, including balance sheets; correspondence; budgets; cash forecasts; remuneration file; excise duty files and financial accounts.

Corporate records of Camwal Limited, soft drinks manufacturers, including share records; articles of association and reports.

Corporate records of the Dartford Brewery Company Limited, including board meetings minutes; annual general meeting minutes; stockholders' meetings minutes; registers of directors, secretaries, members, shares, mortgages and deeds; share records; articles of association; annual and half-yearly reports, statistics and accounts.

Corporate records of Style and Winch Limited, brewers, including minutes of Board and general meetings; minutes of joint committee with the Dartford Brewery and the Royal Brewery Brentford; registers of members, shares, mortgages, sealing, and directors; trust deeds; articles of association; directors' reports and accounts; and agreements.

Property records for Style and Winch Limited, brewers, including joint diary with the Royal Brewery Brentford and Dartford Brewery recording notes on premises and public houses; register of insurance for public houses; order book for repairs; tenants dilapidation registers; and repairs ledger.

Corporate records of Courage and Company Limited, brewers, including Directors' meetings minute books; general meetings minute books; papers of the Board; papers of the Secretary; records of the Investment Committee; register of appeals; register of directors' holdings; articles of association; seal register; powers of attorney; papers relating to company formation; papers relating to the liquidation of Farnham United Brewery; and annual reports.

Financial records of Courage and Company Limited, brewers, including balance sheet ledgers; balance and stock sheets; annual costings; accounts ledgers; analyses; journals; cash books; deposits and withdrawals; bills and general financial papers.

Sales records of Courage and Company Limited, including Sales Committee minutes; trading figures; trade books; records of supplies; prices and charges; records of beer bought and sold; records of beer recieved; purchase and adjustment account papers; sales summaries; delivery records; licences, agreements and contracts.

Records of Charles Kinloch and Company Limited, wine merchants, including Board minutes; share transfers; sales figures; printed reports; papers relating to mergers; correspondence and papers relating to financial matters; and price lists.

Corporate records of Charles Beasley Limited, brewers, including Directors' meetings minute book; Board and general meeting minute book; annual general meeting minute book; registers of members, shares, debentures, mortgages, directors, secretaries, seals and directors' holdings; articles of association; agreements; trust deeds; papers relating to stocks and shares; annual reports with accounts; and letter books.

Records of the Save the Broad Street / Richmond Line (Hampstead) Committee, including minutes, agendas, correspondence, leaflets, petition forms and financial records.

Records of the Broad Street/Richmond Line Joint Committee, including minutes of meeting of the Joint Committee; minutes of meetings with Members of Parliament including the Minister of Transport; correspondence; press releases and publicity material; financial records; Hansard reports on the Parliamentary debate on railways; and press cuttings.