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West African Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes and agendas of board meetings, and of annual general meetings, directors' annual reports and accounts, balance sheets, journal, ledgers and a map showing telegraphic communication lines around the coast of Africa.

Papers of Professor Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1828-1951, comprising correspondence, 1828-1919, notably with William Edward Ayrton, 1883-1899; Sir William Fletcher Barrett, [1878-1896]; Antoine Henri Becquerel, 1902-1908; Alexander Graham Bell, 1879-1880, concerning his experiments with the telephone; Sir Wiliam Crookes, 1876-1916; Michael Faraday, 1830-1835 [written to Richard Phillips]; Sir William Huggins, 1879-1907; David Edward Hughes, 1884-[1912], concerning magnetism; Sir Joseph Larmor, 1902-1916; Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, 1897-1919; Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, 1904-1913; Augusto Righi, [1902]-1916; William Thomson, 1882-1907; notes and printed material, [1907]-1951; photographs and prints, 1870-1910, notably photographs of friends and family.

Papers of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company Limited. The main series consist of contracts including for the supply, laying and repair of cables (TCM/6), cable engineers' logbooks (TCM/8) and ships' logbooks (TCM/10). Other records include memorandum and articles of association 1964-1920, papers relating to the SS GREAT EASTERN and the first Atlantic cables, publicity material and books and pamphlets. The collection also contains records of the Gutta Percha Company, H W Jewesbury and Company and personal papers of Willoughby Smith.

River Plate Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes of board meetings, including directors' annual reports and accounts and a ledger.

Records relating to the operation, policy, development and social impact of the British Post Office from 1636 to the present day. In addition to the provision of postal services, the Post Office's responsibilities have included telecommunications between 1868 and 1981, broadcasting until 1961 and selected banking and financial services. This collection was Designated as an outstanding collection by the MLA in October 2005.

Records of Press Association Limited, including:

1. Corporate records (including articles of association, agreements and minutes);

   2. Share records (including P.A. Share Purchase Company);
   3. Internal administration records;
   4. Financial records;
   5. Operational records (including the Press Association and Exchange Telegraph Service);
   6. Staff records;
   7. Records relating to correspondents;
   8. Property records;
   9. Other Press Association records (including histories of the Association);
   10. Central News;
   11. Reuters;
   12. P.A. Features Limited;
   13. Press Association Photos Limited.

   Access to records less than 30 years old should be sought from the Press Association (contact details may be obtained from a member of staff).

This series comprises the records of private telephone companies which were taken over by the Post Office in 1912. It consists of items relating to individual companies, National Telephone Company rules and instructions, staff related records, agreements, judicial proceedings, valuation of assets and a collection of early telephone directories.

This series encompasses the surviving records of a number of early domestic and international telegraph companies which pioneered the development and growth of the public telegraph network.

This series consists of a collection of licences, concessions, agreements, treaties, conventions and conferences, correspondence and memoranda between foreign governments negotiating landing rights, maintenance and operation of submarine cable telegraphs; ocean survey reports as well as other reports by officers in the General Post Office and committee reports.

This series consists of a collection of arbitration cases between the Postmaster General and private telegraph companies; memoranda by heads of Post Office departments and their correspondence, records of the Central Telegraph Office, lighthouses and lightvessels, circuits and codes, mobile facilities for telegraphs at race meetings and special events; Letters Patent taken out by inventors and specifications of inventions.

This series has nine sub-series. These cover Telegrams (general), Greetings Telegrams, Forces Telegrams, the Telemessage Service, Overseas Radio and Telecommunications Branch, the Rules and Procedures, material used for exhibitions, Press cuttings and History.

Telecommunications minuted papers relating to Post Office telegraph and telephone services. Minuted papers were those papers which had been submitted to the Postmaster General for a decision, and then been retained in the Post Office registry.

At first, the papers minuted tended only to be the particular case submitted to the Postmaster General but, as time went on, registry staff followed a practice of continuing to add physically to an existing minuted case all other cases on that subject which came to hand. As a result, the minuted papers frequently consist of quite large bundles of files on a common subject spanning many years. The date range of the files is consequently often much earlier or much later than the date suggested by the Former Reference used by the registry staff.

POST 30 records concern telecommunications issues in England and Wales, 1792-1952; POST 31 concern Ireland, 1841-1960; and POST 32 concern Scotland, 1864-1966. On its introduction in 1921, POST 33 superseded these sequences and is concerned with telecommunications issues across all these geographies 1921-51, as does its successor in 1949, with POST 102 covering years 1936-76.

The subject of individual files among the minuted papers can be wide-ranging, from the mundane administrative minutiae to policy decisions on developments of critical importance. The diversity and depth of these files can be seen by such examples as the introduction of Bell's telephones to the Post Office (POST 30/330), signalling systems for Belfast and County Down Railway Company (POST 31/74) , arrangements for female telephonists working late duties (POST 32/254D), development of Rugby Radio station (POST 33/1079B), design of telephone kiosks by Giles Gilbert Scott (POST 33/1448), voice recording service for British and Allied armed forces (POST 102/6), telecommunication scheme plans in case of wartime invasion (POST 121/360), and the London to Birmingham television cable linke (POST 122/471).

This class comprises Post Office headquarters files which, as a time saving wartime measure, were recorded under a Decimal Filing system, instead of the previously used 'Minuted' system. Like the minuted series, the files cover a diverse range of subjects and registry staff continued to add files to the series after it had nominally been closed in 1949: consequently, records date up to 1967. Subjects covered in the papers include inland and overseas telecommunications during and after wartime, the issue of stamps, and Post Office administrative records, such as those covering the introduction of the Decimal Filing system.

The Decimal Filing system was a simple system based on numbers being allocated to particular subjects or headings, with decimal extensions of these numbers being allocated to subheadings: e.g. 10 = Postal Packets, 100 = Letters (Ordinary). No record volumes were created for the Decimal Filing series; papers were filed in batches according to the common serial number allocated for a particular subject.

Pacific and European Telegraph Company Limited records comprise of memorandum and articles of association, agreements, minutes of Board meetings, minutes of annual general meetings, minutes of a meeting of debenture holders and prospectus.

US Military Uses of Space, 1946-1991 is a themed microfilm collection which presents an integrated record of US military space organisations, operations, and policy from 1945 to 1991. Included are memoranda, messages, presidential decision documents, program management directives, histories, organisational manuals, reports, and studies. Documents concern four basic areas of US space military activity: military support systems (communications, meteorology, reconnaissance and other satellites), space weaponry (anti-satellite weapons and the Strategic Defense Initiative), policy, and organisation. Material concerning military support systems includes papers relating to the establishment of a US photographic reconnaissance satellite program, 1956; US Air Force contracts to Lockheed Missile Systems Division to develop the WS-117L air reconnaissance satellite, 1956-57; the development of the US Air Force reconnaissance satellite, codenamed SENTRY and then SAMOS, 1958; the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) research and development of an imaging satellite, codenamed CORONA, 1958; launching of CORONA satellite, 18 Aug 1960; the development and launch of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites designed to provide nuclear explosion detection data relevant to military intelligence collection, treaty verification (Limited Test Ban Treaty, Threshold Ban Treaty, Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Outer Space Treaty), and damage assessment, 1963-1970; development and launch of signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites, including the RHYOLITE communications satellite, 1970; the launch of the KH-11 electro-optical 'pixel' imaging satellite, Dec 1976; development and launch of ocean surveillance PARCAE satellites, 1976-1989; communications intelligence (COMINT) satellite including the VORTEX and MAGNUM satellites, 1978-1985; the launch of synthetic aperture radar system LACROSSE satellites, 1988-1991; the development and launch of early warning satellites including the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS) to monitor the missile launches from the Eurasian land mass and Submarine- Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs); papers relating to launch systems, including expendable launch vehicles (ELVs), such as modified Martin SM-68 Titan Inter- Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). Material concerning space weaponry includes Massachusetts Institute of Technology report to US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, introducing theoretical and scientific concepts for a laser weapons missile defence program, 1984; reports from the US Department of Defense, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, to the US Congress relating to the costs of a laser and kinetic energy anti-ballistic missile program and its proposed compliance with the 26 May 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 1984-1990; report from the US Department of Defense, Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, to the US Congress outlining the goals, objectives, and costs of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 1985; reports from the US General Accounting Office relating to the SDI concept change from laser and kinetic energy weapons to 'Brilliant Pebbles' weaponry, in which several thousand satellite interceptors would orbit the earth having the capability to destroy missile targets, 1990-1991. Documents relating to US military space policy include reports from the US National Security Council outlining the significance of space with respect to US national security, 1958-1985; memoranda from the US Department of Defense urging military priorities for space research, 1959-1977. Material relating to the organisational command of the military space program includes function manuals and inter-agency memoranda detailing the structure and role of specific organisations such as US Aerospace Command, the US Department of Defense, US Air Force Space Command, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, the US Army Space Agency, and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Mediterranean Extension Telegraph Company Limited records, which comprise minutes and directors' annual reports and accounts.

Marseilles, Algiers and Malta Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes of board meetings.

Administrative records of telecommunications regions including London, the Home Counties, Midlands and North Eastern regions and the Aberdeen telephone area. Such records typically include regional annual reports, bulletins and local service issues but not all records survive for all regions.

The most extensive records are for the London Telecommunications Region (LTR) which include annual reports 1937-60 (TCB 26), internal information and newsletters such as the publicity officers 'News and Views' 1960-82 (TCB 708).

Executive committee meeting minutes of the International Submarine Telegraph Memorial.

Great Western Telegraph Company Limited records comprise rough minutes only.

Records of the Globe Telegraph and Trust Company Limited, with records of predecessor and subsidiary organisations as listed below. The records include: minutes and papers presented at meetings, annual reports, constitutional documents, deeds, reports, financial records, administrative files, staff magazines and histories. Deeds which survive from 1717 pre-date the establishment of the business.

Predecessor/subsidiary companies with records in this collection:
Globe Telegraph and Trust Co Ltd;
Aberdeen, Ceylon and Eastern Trust Ltd;
Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London Trust Ltd;
African Direct Telegraph Co Ltd;
Associated Cable Companies;
British Australian Telegraph Co Ltd;
British Indian Extension Telegraph Co Ltd;
British Indian Submarine Telegraph Co Ltd;
Cable and Wireless (Holding) Ltd;
Cable and Wireless Ltd;
Cables Investment Trust Ltd;
China Submarine Telegraph Co Ltd;
Companhia Telegrafica Platino Brasileira;
Connaught Trust Ltd;
Deutsche See Telegraphen Gesellschaft;
Direct Spanish Telegraph Co Ltd;
Eastern and South African Telegraph Co Ltd;
Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Co Ltd;
Eastern Telegraph Co Ltd;
Electra House Ltd;
Europe and Azores Telegraph Co Ltd;
Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Co Ltd;
Great Western Telegraph Co Ltd;
Marseilles, Algiers and Malta Telegraph Co Ltd;
Mediterranean Extension Telegraph Co Ltd;
Pacific and European Telegraph Co Ltd;
River Plate Telegraph Co Ltd;
Share Investment Trust;
Victoria Embankment Properties Ltd;
West African Telegraph Co Ltd.

Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes and agendas of Board meetings and Minutes of joint committee meetings.

Records of news agency Exchange Telegraph Company Limited, including:

1. Constitution; operating agreements, Mss 22956-61;
   2. Board and AGM minutes etc; annual reports and accounts, Mss 22962-9;
   3. Papers relating to lawsuits, Mss 22970-4;
   4. Internal financial and accounting records, Mss 22975-23012;
   5. Records of subscribers, Mss 23013-24;
   6. Correspondence (subdivided as follows):
      (i) Miscellaneous early correspondence, Mss 23025-7;
      (ii) Correspondence etc relating to dealings with the London Stock Exchange, Mss 23028-32;
      (iii) Correspondence etc concerning the sports services, chiefly horse racing, Mss 23033-41;
      (iv) Correspondence etc concerning relations with the Press Association Ltd, Mss 23042-8. 10;
      (v) Papers of Wilfred King (chairman 1913-43), Mss 23049-51;
      (vi) Papers of E C Barker (a director, 1913-33), Mss 23052-61;
      (vii) Correspondence relating to arrangements with the BBC, Ms 23062;
      (viii) Foreign correspondence (including Second World War correspondence), Mss 23063-6;
      (ix) Correspondence concerning tariff rates, Ms 23067;
   7. Examples of news transmitted and statistics service cards, Mss 23068-74;
   8. Engineering and patents records, Mss 23075-94;
   9. Publicity records, eg tariffs, circulars and application forms, Mss 23095-102;
   10. Records of correspondents, wages and commissions, Mss 23103-6;
   11. Photographs, Mss 23107-15;
   12. News cuttings, Mss 23116-25;
   13. Miscellaneous (chiefly historical notes and records of subsidiaries), Mss 23126-35;
   14. Records of the joint services of ETC and the Press Association Ltd, Mss 23136-57;
   15. Miscellaneous items presented by BT Archives, Ms 38642.

Europe and Azores Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes of Board meetings and Annual General Meetings, Directors' annual reports and accounts, details of balance sheets, a journal, ledgers and a private ledger.

Eastern Telegraph Company Limited records comprise minutes of joint committee meetings, indexes to board minute books and an "authority book" containing papers concerning share issues and the payment of dividends.

Records of the Eastern Extension, Australasian and China Telegraph Company Limited comprising Directors' annual reports and accounts, photographs of Javanese villages and papers regarding the new issue of shares.

Records of the Eastern and South African Telegraph Company Limited comprising minutes, Directors' annual accounts, balance sheets, general ledgers, cash books and journals.

Correspondence and papers of the statesman Henry Dundas both general and in his capacity as Commissioner (later President) of the Board of Control, 1783-1811.

Records of the Direct Spanish Telegraph Company Limited comprising memorandum and articles of association with a special resolution.

Reports of the Deutsche See Telegraphen Gesellschaft.

Minutes of the Companhia Telegrafica Platino Brasileira, later the London Platino Brazilian Telegraph Company Limited.

The records of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation reflect the history of Commonwealth co-operation in the field of international telecommunications. The collection is arranged into five general classes:

1. Imperial Communications Advisory Committee, 1928-1945
2. Commonwealth Communications Council, 1944-1949
3. Commonwealth Telecommunications Board, 1949-1969
4. Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Commonwealth Telecommunications Council (CTC), and Commonwealth Telecommunications Bureau, 1966-1987
5. Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Commonwealth Telecommunications Bureau and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Council (CTC) after 1987
   Each class represents the surviving records of the body that administered Commonwealth telecommunications relations during a particular period. Within each class, the material falls into three broad categories: the annual reports of the administrative body; the minutes, proceedings and memoranda of that body; the proceedings and minutes of committees and subcommittees appointed by the body. Most of this material is collected, by year, into bound volumes. In addition, the collection contains material (in files and bound volumes) that was not generated by the incumbent administrative body, but does relate to Commonwealth telecommunications during the lifetime of that institution and was presumably retained for use in the course of its activities or for reference purposes. Much of this material relates to the reports and proceedings of the Commonwealth Telecommunication Conferences under whose authority the administrative body derived its mandate. In each class, this material is listed under the heading General Documents.

Minutes of annual general meetings of the China Submarine Telegraph Company Limited.

Papers of Professor Colin Cherry, [1928]-1981, comprising biographical papers, 1935-1981, notably index of reports on experiments at Northampton Polytechnic, 1935-1936; press cuttings, 1961-1974;
work diaries, 1962-1977; scientific notes and diagrams, [1928]-1950, mainly relating to elastic field analogies, periodic structures, transformers, electric and magnetic circuits;
papers whilst with Imperial College Electrical Engineering Department, 1953-1977, comprising papers relating to lectures, tutorials, seminars, symposiums, minutes and correspondence relating to an undergraduate group project scheme; papers relating to postgraduate lectures, 1950-1979, notably concerning circuit theory, communication; correspondence with staff, lectures for the London School of Economics, and Imperial College groups, 1951-1978; correspondence and reports relating to research projects and grants in the Communications Section, 1949-1977, including for stammering, communication developments and population, telephone services; research papers and notes of students, 1968-1978, correspondence with students, 1947-1971, concerning higher degrees, 1957-1967; correspondence and papers, largely concerning outside lectures, conferences and visits, 1948-1979, with professional, technical and educational institutions, societies, clubs, publishers, companies and some individuals; correspondence with the Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1946-1976, including notes and scripts;
unpublished papers, 1952-1962; correspondence relating to book publications, 1952-1978; published scientific papers and articles, 1940-1977; typescript of chapters of The Age of Access: Information Technology and Social Revolution , correspondence with the publishers, 1978-1979; recordings of talks and lectures, 1963-1976.

Records of central administration of the Post Office Telegraphs and Telephones (later Post Office Telecommunications) including records of the Post Office Board (including meeting papers TCB 54), Post Office Advisory Committee and other central functions.

The records concern both strategic telegraphy and telephony activities, such as policy, planning, legal papers (including on the takeover of the National Telephone Company) and routine reporting, and central operational activities including personnel and communications (including Joint Production Council publications, staff magazines, press notices, media coverage and training school and studio photographs).

These central administration records also include the minuted papers relating to telecommunication services 1889-1977 that, for various reasons, fell outside previous archival transfer. The subjects in these minuted papers (TCB 2) include satellite communications (Early Bird), international telephone services, policies toward staff and unions, telephone information services (including ship telephone services, roads and weather, teletourist service, speaking clock and the Santa Claus service), and technological developments (including telephone kiosks, the answering machine, "Amplifying Telephone" and "Laryngaphone").

Records of Cable and Wireless Limited, comprising reports of the managing committee, finance committee and investment committee; reports of a tour of inspection of Mediterranean telegraphic communications; and papers relating to Sir Edward Wilshaw, chairman.

Records of Cable and Wireless (Holding) Limited. The records comprise of Court of Directors minutes and presented papers, Committees including Managing Directors minutes, Committee reports to the Board, Annual General Meetings minutes, verbatim reports of ordinary and extraordinary general meetings, annual reports and accounts, balance sheets, cash books, journals, purchases and sales journals, financial statements, investment and general ledgers, and summary list of investments.

Minutes of board meetings of the British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company Limited.

Records of the British Indian Extension Telegraph Company Limited comprising minutes of board meetings, annual general meetings and liquidators; and an agreement.

Records of the British Australian Telegraph Company Limited comprising minutes of annual general meetings, meetings of the board and meetings of liquidators.

Correspondence, comprising a private letter book 1863-1867, and correspondence and reports relating to the laying of the West Indies cable 1869-1870. The private letter book contains bound letters refering to cable laying in India, the West Indies and Brazil, resistance testing to find faults on cables in a long letter to Fleeming Jenkin, mining companies with which Bright was involved, the Steam Engine Improvement Company and the Railway Lubricating Company. The volume contains many blank pages and some pages have been cut out. Some letters are illegible because of the very faint copy, and there appears to be a double impression on some pages suggesting that a second letter may have been copied onto the same page. The loose correspondence relates to the setting up of the West India and Panama Telegraph Company and includes reports and correspondence concerning the laying of the cable. Some of the papers were used in a court case in 1872 between the West India and Panama Telegraph Company and the India Rubber Company for failing in their contractual obligations.

Records of the African Direct Telegraph Company Limited, comprising papers relating to the formation of the company; minutes and papers of board meetings; annual reports and accounts; ledgers and journal.