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

Records relating to the office of Sheriff in the Corporation of London, including scruting [scrutinization] papers for elections of Sheriffs, Chamberlains, Ale Conners [inspectors] and Auditors, 1676-1730 (with gaps); Acts of Common Council regarding the nomination and election of Sheriffs, 1631-1834; accounts received under the Greenwax [a seal of green wax was fixed to documents delivered by the Exchequer to sheriffs] and paid into the Chamber of the Corporation of London, 1680-1748; accounts of fines imposed at various courts, 1681-1732; estreat rolls [copies of an original record of fines entered on the rolls of a court, to be levied by the bailiff or other officer] 1670-1858; bailiff's and sheriff's accounts (copies of the estreat rolls, with marginal notes as to the collection or non-collection of the fines), 1795-1839; appointments of Bailiffs of the Greenwax to make the City's claims in the Exchequer and to collect fines due to the City, 1646-1803; bailiff's and sheriff's accounts including expense claims, 1738-1807; 'account of monies paid, laid out and expanded for the use of His Majesty in the Shrievalty 1793-4 for which the sheriffs crave allowance' [Sheriff's expense accounts], 1793-1797; extracts from repertories and journals relating to the fines due to the Sheriffs and the City under various charters, 1449-1803, compiled by the City Solicitor in 1816, and other papers relating to the collection of fines and the rights of the City to those fines, 1685-1874; copy acquittances from the Pipe Roll, 1637-1832; copy petitions and lists of Sheriffs elected, 1627-1678; bonds, in a penalty of £1000, 'that the Sheriffs-Elect shall appear at Guildhall on the Vigil of St Michael to take upon themselves the office of Sheriffs of the City of London for the year ensuing', 1672-1762; 'A letter to the Livery of London relative to the view of the writer in executing the office of Sheriff' by Sir Richard Phillips, 1808; papers relating to the Sheriff's Yeomen, 1829-1859; notes regarding nominations for the office of Sheriff, including numbers of persons nominated each year, 1733-1999, list of Sheriffs from 1832, list of nominations by the Lord Mayor, 1889-1901 and notes on nominations by the Lord Mayor, 1971; precepts for the election of Sheriffs and other officers, 1832-1852; royal approvals of newly elected Sheriffs, 1861-1982; returning officer's files from the election of Sheriffs, which may include correspondence, election addresses, nomination forms signed by Liverymen, notes of poll results, 1933-1999; newspaper cuttings relating to the election of 1980 in which the first woman stood for election as sheriff, 1980; a brief history of the City of London Sheriffs' Society, 20th century; list of Sheriffs and Justiciars of London and Middlesex, 1100-54 and a list of Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, 1154-1216, compiled 1972; notes on the office of Sheriff, 1988; and various other administrative papers relating to the role of Sheriff.

Manuscript volume containing treatises on French finance, 1714-[1783], namely instructions on the general compatibility according to the custom established by the Chambre des Comptes, [1770], including treatises on the accounts of the estates and woods, expenditure and the poll-tax; a paper on foreign exchanges, 1714, with a table of exchange rates for England and Holland; a historical account of the banking reform program of John Law, 1720, including an account of rulings related to finance for 1720 and the preceding years; a treatise on the program of John Law, [1720], presenting arguments for and against Law's operations; studies on the finances of England and France, [1783], attributed to Dr [Richard] Pryce; a paper on the actual state of the finances of Great Britain, 1755. The general title page and table of contents are in a handwriting of later date than the treatises themselves.

1 volume titled Observations presentees by Andre Sabatier (1817) in which Sabatier writes about public and private credit, and taxation. Chapter headings are: Du Credit; Du Credit publique et de la dette de la France; De L'Amortissement; Du Payment des Arrerages; Des mesures a adopter pour parvenir a absorber une partie de la dette transmissible; Observations generales; Credit particulier; and Credit public.

Letters of attorney given by holders of South Sea stock in Amsterdam, The Hague and Geneva to London merchants respecting their stock, 1731-1739.

Manuscript volume containing 'A general abstract of the stamp duties for thirty years, ending the 2nd August 1764, distinguishing each year'. The abstract is signed 'Made out and carefully examined by I Harris, pro Comptroller'.

Incomplete copy of instructions to sheriffs of counties and mayors of corporate towns to fix tax assessments, dated 12 August, 1634. The sheriffs are to divide the whole charge laid upon the county into hundreds, lathes and other divisions, and those into parishes and towns, which are to be rated by houses and lands 'saveing that it is his Majestie's pleasure that where there shall happen to be any men of ability, by reason of gainfull trades, great stockes of money or personall estate, who perchance have either none or little land and consequently in an ordinary landscott, would pay nothing or very little such men be rated and assessed according to their worth and ability, and that the moneys that shall bee levyed upon such may be applied to the spareing and easing of such as being either of weake estate, or charged with many children or great debts are unable to beare soe great a chardge as the lands in their occupation might require in an usuall and ordinary proportion...'. The clergy are to be taxed and assessed in the same way as the rest of the king's subjects. Transcript of the signatures of 18 persons, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Coventry, and the Earls of Arundel, Bridgewater and Dorset.

Manuscript volume containing an account of the public revenue of England, Nov 1688-Sep 1691, with an extension of the statement to 1696 in the same hand, entitled 'A brief state of the incomes and issues of their Majesties public revenue...'.

Manuscript volumes containing abstracts of parliamentary bills relating to revenue, dating from the reign of King William III and Queen Mary II, c1689 -1743.

Manuscript volume containing transcripts of parliamentary papers relating to grants in England and Ireland, 1690-1702, including an account of royal grants made in Ireland from Jan 1698 to Dec 1699, presented by William Lowndes, Secretary to the Treasury, 1699; a report by the Commissioners of Enquiry into the Forfeited Estates in Ireland, [Dec 1699]; an account of rents in the honour of Windsor presented by David Cobb, 13 Feb 1700; an abstract of the sale of fee-farm rents, presented by William Haward and Sir John Talbot, [13 Dec 1700]; an account of royal grants made in the Duchy of Lancaster Mar 1699 to Jan 1702, presented by John Bennett, Auditor of the Duchy, 1699-1702; extracts from parliamentary proceedings relating to policy towards forfeited estates in Ireland, 4 Apr 1690-26 Feb 1700; an alphabetical list of those holding land of the crown [in Ireland], their debts to the Crown, and notes of proceedings against them; an account of all royal grants made in England from Feb 1685 to Jan 1702, presented by William Lowndes, 1700-1702; an account of grants and gratuities paid by the Commissioners for Prizes since Jun 1692, Mar 1701.

Manuscript volume, 1660-1702, containing transcripts of briefs, patents and commissions relating to the Exchequer, from the reign of King Charles II to the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne, with descriptions of offices within the Exchequer. There is a possibility that this manuscript was compiled by William Bromley.

Papers, 1881-1891, of Donald James Mackay, 11th Baron Reay, as Governor of Bombay, comprising correspondence, memoranda, petitions and other papers, 1884-1889 and undated, on A'bkari administration (a system of licences for the distillation and sale of spirits in Bombay); correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports and other papers, 1881-1891 and undated, relating to military and naval subjects; correspondence, memoranda, minutes and reports, 1885-1890 and undated, on education; correspondence and other papers, 1881-1891 and undated, on agriculture; correspondence and other papers, 1884-1889 and undated, on sanitation and water works; correspondence and papers, 1884-1891 and undated, on various other subjects including administration, hospitals, irrigation, railways and finance; addresses of welcome to Lord Reay, 1886-1890 and undated; a drawing of Bombay harbour and accompanying manuscript plan, undated; manuscript map of Karachi Harbour Board, 1887.

Records of the City Chamberlain, Corporation of London, including return of pensions paid by the Corporation; receipts for rents and rates paid; papers relating to Freedoms of the City of London; assessments of subsidies; quinquennial valuation lists; papers relating to duties and rates.

Records of the British Mercantile Agency, debt collection business, including prospectuses, financial accounts, enquiries, letters and a damping cloth used to take copies of letters and accounts.

Access is restricted to records less than 30 years old where specified and 24 hours notice is required for access to all the records.

Records of the Wholesale Chemists and Allied Trades Protection Association, comprising Trade Advisory Committee minute book; prospectuses, and papers relating to the insolvency of a specific company.

Access is restricted to records less than 30 years old where specified and 24 hours notice is required for access to all the records.

Papers and correspondence, 1846-1974, of David Meredith Seares Watson and his family, largely comprising biographical material and family papers, scientific correspondence, and photographs, also including a few Exchequer receipts, 1568-1622.

Biographical material, 1886-1974, includes Watson's birth certificate, 1886; documentation, including certificates and correspondence, of Watson's career, honours and awards over a period of forty years, including election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1922, the award of its Darwin medal, 1942, and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society, 1965; correspondence about the Directorship of the British Museum (Natural History), 1937; correspondence about the presentation album on his retirement from the Jodrell Chair, 1951; correspondence and papers relating to his final retirement from research, 1965; obituaries, 1973; F R Parrington and T S Westoll's memoir of Watson from Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1974; an account of Watson's early days and family background by his daughter Janet Vida; recollections by his research assistant Joyce Townsend; Watson's curriculum vita and bibliography.

Family papers include the birth certificate of Watson's father, David, 1846, correspondence with his wife Mary, 1888, and a letter of condolence to Mrs Watson on her husband's death, 1899; diaries of Mary Watson, 1881, 1885; birth certificate of their daughter Constance, 1888, letters from Constance to her brother David Meredith Seares Watson, 1905-1909 and undated; papers relating to Katharine Margarite Watson (née Parker), Watson's wife, including her birth certificate, 1891, marriage certificate, 1917, death certificate, 1969, and various correspondence; papers relating to Watson's daughter Katharine Mary, including letters of congratulation on her birth, 1918, and letters to her parents, 1950, 1955; material relating to Watson's mother's family, including letters of her father Samuel M Seares, 1871, 1879-1882; papers of Charles J B Hutchinson, 1879-1880, who emigrated to Australia after his engagement to Watson's mother was broken off but who remained in correspondence with her aunt, Fanny Rossiter; other Parker family papers, 1929-1972; miscellaneous other personal correspondence, 1896-1965.

Four Exchequer receipts dated 1568, 1580, 1616 and 1622 were found enclosed with a letter to Watson's wife.

Scientific correspondence of Watson, sometimes including photographs of fossil specimens, with leading palaeontologists in Africa, 1947-1953, America, 1915-1964, Australia, 1931-1962, China, 1926-1927, 1935-1964, England, 1913-1914, 1920, 1926-1960, France, 1930-1936, 1945-1956, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1920-1962, Russia, 1920-1962, and Scandinavia, 1922-1964, and with the palaeontologist Robert Broom, 1911-1950, and Watson's research assistant Joyce Townshend, 1929-1973, also including a few letters from Watson's wife and scientific colleagues, and an obituary of Watson, 1974; correspondence and papers on bones found at Qau, Egypt, 1930-1957, 1972; miscellaneous other palaeontological correspondence, 1912-1967. There are few copies of Watson's outgoing letters before the end of the Second World War.

Photographic material comprises photographs documenting Watson's career, [1912]-1965 and undated, some including colleagues; photographs of scientific colleagues, 1911-1951 and undated, including Watson's predecessor as Professor at University College London, J P Hill, and Robert Broom; album of photographs and signatures presented to Watson, 1951; undated family photographs, including a photograph of Watson as a boy, photographs of members of the Seares and Parker families, and photographs of Watson's wife, Katharine Margarite, and daughter, Katharine Mary; photographs of unidentified fossil specimens.

Royal Society Darwin Medal Award given to Watson, 1942.

Archives of the Peruvian Corporation, 1849-1967, comprising the surviving records accumulated at the London Office of the Peruvian Corporation. The bulk of the collection is an accumulation of files, most of which are dated after 1930, with a large proportion dating from the last ten years of the Corporation's history. Of more special note is the unusual series of photograph albums, with photographs of railways, scenery, locomotives and rolling stock dating from the early years of the 20th century. It is clear that the Corporation regularly destroyed groups of non-current records, and further papers were destroyed just before the collection reached the Library, so many expected series do not appear (for example, there are very few financial records). Apart from a full series of Annual Reports and some legal documents, there is very little material relating to the Peruvian Bondholders' Committee or to the early days of the Corporation.

Manuscript volume containing an account of the public debts at the Exchequer, exclusive of the deficiencies of parliamentary grants, 14 Mar 1716, prepared for [Spencer Compton, Viscount Pevensey] Speaker of the House of Commons, from material in various Finance Acts.

Manuscript volume containing a treatise by Jacques Angrand, Vicompte de Fontpertuis, on French finance, [1740], comprising a treatise on the benefit of public credit, entitled 'L'Utilité du crédit public', demonstrated in four parts. The manuscript includes an allegorical drawing in pen and ink on folio 8.

Manuscript volume of financial abstracts relating to Customs and Excise duties, Exchequer bills and the Post Office, as follows:
1.'A true copie of the table of proportion whereby the money received out of the country upon the account of excise is applyed to the severall duties of excise...Excise Office, London, 9 July 1703', from an original signed by Deane Mountague'.

2. 'A state of the Exchequer bills issued by vertue of three act of Parliament that passed on the 8th, 9th and 12th year of the reign of William III computed from 26th April 1697 to 27th August 1703'.
3. Account of the Salt Act bills of credit, 1696-98.
4. Account of principal and interest paid on the several registers following, between Michaelmas 1702 and Midsummer 1704.
5. Account of the revenue of the General Post Office, 1702-1703.
6. Penny Post Office account 23 Sep-23 Dec 1702.
7. 'List of the officers and messengers belonging to the Peny Post Office with their several salaries and wages'.
8. 'Gross and net produce of the whole excise from 24 June 1704 to 24 June 1705'.

Copy of a royal warrant signed by Robert Walpole, then Secretary at War, of 26 Dec 1708, to the auditors of the imprests on behalf of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos and Paymaster General of the Forces, allowing him to continue his payments 'for our forces & other services in the Low Countries' at the agreed rate of ten guilders, fifteen stivers to the pound sterling.

Exchequer order, dated 7 May 1715, addressed to George Montagu, Auditor of the Receipt of the Exchequer, by virtue of letters under the Privy Seal of 31 Dec 1714, to pay to Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Deloraine, £200 (a quarter of his annuity) from money applicable to the uses of the civil government. The order is signed by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, First Lord of the Treasury, and endorsed 'Intr. in Officio Cler. pelliu[m]'.

Manuscripts relating to public finance, comprising:

1. 'An account of the disposal of the one million granted last session of Parliament towards enabling his Majesty to augment his forces by sea and land and to take necessary measures for the security of his dominions... presented by Charles Lowndes [Chief Clerk of the Treasury]' 19 Jan 1756.
2. 'An account shewing how the money given for the service of the year 1756 has been disposed of distinguished under the several heads (navy, ordnance, forces, deficience and one section of miscellaneous items) until the 4th day of March 1757 with the overplus thereupon...presented...by me Samuel Martin', 4 Mar 1757.

Manuscript volume containing a transcript of a treatise by Comte Goswin de Wynants, [1739], on the public charges made on the revenue of the provinces of Brabant and Limburg, Belgium. Includes a section in Flemish added after Wynants' death, headed 'Projecten van de setboekers gedruckt ende gepublieert met den placcaerte van den 12 Augusti 1749', and an appendix of extracts from documents dating from the 15th century to 1708, with marginal notes in the hand of the transcriber and notes, running titles and a table of contents added in a later 18th century hand.

Manuscript volume containing tables of the tolls for Argenta in the province of Ferrara, Italy, 1423-1444.

Manuscript containing an account of the revenue of King Charles I, entitled 'A briefe view of the State of his Majesties ordinary Receipte for the yeare ensueing 1642 together with the ordinary paymente unprovided for, for the said yeare', 1642.

Papers collated by William John Braithwaite relating to the origins of the National Insurance system in the United Kingdom, 1908-1932, notably manuscript transcripts of Braithwaite's diaries, 1910-1912, and drafts of his memoirs relating to the period where he was working with the Rt Hon David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the scheme; letters and telegrams found loose in the diaries and memoirs, 1911-1932, from correspondents including Sir Robert Laurie Morant, the Rt Hon Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman, and James Arthur Salter, Baron Salter; official papers relating to the creation of the National Insurance Act, 1908-1912, including memoranda and reports on social insurance schemes in Germany, 1908, memoranda, reports and correspondence on the costs of the National Insurance scheme, the costs of alternative schemes, contributions, and accident compensation, numerous drafts and commentaries, and correspondence with various relevant organisations; printed, typescript and manuscript versions of the evidence given by Braithwaite before the Royal Commission on National Insurance, 1924-1925; correspondence between Braithwaite and the Stoke and Melford Club, 1912, on the effects of the National Insurance Act; press cuttings, 1911-1912, 1923, mainly relating to Braithwaite's appointments; a letter to Braithwaite from H Angst, British Consul in Zurich, 1910, giving a full account of an interview with Herr Babel, leader of the German Social Democratic party, warning of the danger of war; a photograph of Braithwaite.