General records of the Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, including letter books; appointment books; statistics; minutes of the Chief Rabbinate Council; minutes, correspondence and proceedings of the Conference of Anglo-Jewish Preachers; papers of the Provincial Jewish Ministers Fund including correspondence, minutes, financial accounts and reports of inspections of Hebrew classes; orders of service for national and royal occasions, synagogue foundations, consecrations, jubilees and anniversaries; funerals and memorials, marriages, Holocaust memorials, and dedications of hospitals and schools; and photographs. ACC/2805/01/110 records the results of the survey into Hebrew Congregations in the British Empire commissioned by Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler soon after he took office.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Correspondence of Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler, 1868-1901. A small number of records survive from around 1868 for the Chief Rabbinate of Nathan Adler and more from the late 1870s onwards - around the time Hermann Adler began to undertake many of his father's duties for him. The records consist of bundles of letters to the Chief Rabbi from communal organisations and individuals in Britain and overseas.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 1988-1999, including correspondence and publications predating Sacks' election as Chief Rabbi; correspondence; administrative files; papers relating to the United Synagogue; papers relating to organisations including the Jewish Memorial Council, the Jewish National Fund, the Joint Israel Appeal, the Zionist Association, the Jewish Marriage Council, and provincial organisations; correspondence relating to the patronage of the Chief Rabbi; papers relating to education including papers of the Jewish Educational Development Trust, correspondence with various schools and universities including the Jews' Free School, Immanuel College, Jews College, Anglo-Jewish Youth, and the Union of Jewish Students; correspondence with welfare organisations including Jewish Care and the Central Council for Jewish Community Services.

Papers relating to political issues including community relations, medical ethics, shechita [slaughtering practices], kosher foods, kashrut [food laws], women in the community, Soviet Jewry, circumcision, Middle East peace talks, anti-Semitism and racism, the Shoah and the Holocaust, business ethics and inner cities; papers relating to overseas congregations including Israel, United States of America, Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Europe and Russia; papers relating to the media including correspondence with journalists and broadcasters, copies of articles, interviews, press cuttings, addresses, speeches and lectures, broadcasts, and press statements; papers relating to interfaith organisations including the Council of Christians and Jews, and correspondence with Lambeth Palace, the Islamic community and the Vatican; papers relating to campaigns organised by the Chief Rabbi including the Community Walk for Charity, Jewish Continuity, the Initiative for Developing Education in Adults and the Chief Rabbinate Awards for Excellence; and newsletters from the office of the Chief Rabbi.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records relating to the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and the Jewish Religious Union, consisting of the working papers and sermons of Israel Mattuck, Lily Montagu, Claude Montefiore and Leslie Edgar. The records do not deal exclusively with their roles within the Liberal Jewish movement, but cover a range of their activities. Some more personal correspondence also exists within the collection. There are also some papers of the Jewish Religious Union, including history and press cuttings.

Records of the London Society for Jews and Christians, including minute books; correspondence; financial accounts; reports; bulletins; press cuttings; papers for publication; copies of talks; and programmes and advertisements for meetings and conferences.

Records, 1848-1984, of the Melanesian Mission, including minute books; correspondence, journals and diaries of pioneer missionaries including R H Codrington and J C Patteson; correspondence of more recent missionaries; logs relating to the Mission vessels including the first 'Southern Cross' log book, 1855. Material relating to the Church of Melanesia includes the proceedings of the Provincial Synod from its inception in 1975, conference reports, and lists of missionaries from the Mission's beginnings to the 1920s. Printed materials include the Southern Cross Log, 1895-1954, 1963-1973, and Annual Reports, 1864-1939 (1917 and 1923 missing). There are also a large number of photographs and manuscript maps of the Diocese of the Melanesian Mission dating from 1875 onwards.

Photocopies of three manuscript notebooks containing chronicles of the Nazareth Baptist Church, written c1932, ranging from accounts of miraculous events to the day to day life of the Church in Inanda, letters to dissident priests and accounts of church finances.

Papers, 1953-1986, dating predominantly from the 1960s and 1970s, on Melanesian culture, government and geography and the work of the church in the New Hebrides, collected by the Rt Rev Derek Rawcliffe.

Records of the Westminster Synagogue, 1902-2005. The records consist of minutes of the Council, Executive Committee, Search Committee, House and Building Committee and Annual General Meetings; correspondence; publications and printed material, reports and newsletters; and papers of Rabbi Harold Reinhart, Rabbi Albert Freidlander and Rabbi Thomas Salamon.

Two volumes of press cuttings from Anglo-Jewish newspapers, concerning aspects of Jewish life; and from national and international newspapers concerning Chief Rabbi Nathan Adler and his successor Chief Rabbi Herman Adler, 1872-1901.

Records of the Court of the Chief Rabbi, London Beth Din, 1904-1988. The bulk of the archive transferred to London Metropolitan Archives are the administrative papers and general correspondence of the Court, and in particular that of the Clerks and Registrar. There are also files concerning consultations the Beth Din undertook with the Government on the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Bill in the 1980s. Some correspondence and rough notes of the individual Dayanim and records relating to work done with refugees in the Second World War have also been deposited.

The archive consists of the official working papers of the Chief Rabbinate from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Files, volumes, bundles of papers, photographs, prints, video tapes, publications and leaflets make up the bulk of the collection. The Chief Rabbis represented in this collection are Nathan Adler (1868-1901), Hermann Adler (1868-1921), Joseph Hertz (1899-1946), Israel Brodie (1917-1967), Immanuel Jakobovits (1913-1992) and Jonathan Sacks (1988-2004). Also included are some papers of the Deputy for the Chief Rabbi, Harris Lazarus (1942-1950).

The archive is primarily concerned with the activities of the Chief Rabbinate. Because of the cosmopolitan nature of the office there are files on Jewish congregations overseas which are of interest, also some papers on the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath (ACC/2805/06/05/1-11). The varying interests of individual Chief Rabbis are reflected in the collection: for instance Immanuel Jakobovits' role in Jewish medical ethics.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi.

Manuscript volume, 15th century: De raptu anime Tundali et visione. Pasted to the inside front cover is a full-page colour illustration of Tundal presenting his manuscript to Pope Eugenius, inscribed: Tondali Visione Eugenio Papae Oblata. Folio 1r bears a fragment of another text, in the same hand, as this manuscript was formerly part of a larger manuscript.

This collection consists of the papers and correspondence of James Hayward of Bridgewater, a wholesale confectioner, and one of the most energetic of Joanna's followers in the West Country, with a wide circle of correspondents throughout the country, 1789-1888. He also collected, during the middle and later nineteenth century, the papers of many other of Joanna's followers, most notably Edmund Baker, who was minister of a chapel held by the sect in Teddington, Middlesex from about 1809 to 1811, and later minister in Dowlish, Somerset. The collection includes a roll of members, and register book for the Teddington chapel and lists of members and signed testimonies from Dowlish and Ilminster. It also includes a large number of printed books by and concerning Joanna, many of them from the libraries of James Hayward and Edmund Baker.

Correspondence of Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler, 1868-1921, relating to diverse subjects including education, legal cases, Jews College, shechita, charity and relief funds, Russo-Jewish Committee, the United Synagogue, administration, provincial congregations and marriages; and relating to foreign places including Australia, China, Japan, Palestine, Jerusalem, Ireland, Romania, South Africa, Russia and New York.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records of Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, 1899-1946, including correspondence with various individuals and organisations including the Anglo-Jewish Association, Aria College, the London Beth Din, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Conference of Anglo-Jewish Preachers, the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women, the Jewish Chronicle, Jews' College, Central Committee for Jewish Education, the Jewish Historical Society, the Jewish Memorial Council, the Council for Christians and Jews, the Jewish Peace Society, London County Council, the Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund, the Mizrachi Organisation, the Provincial Ministers Fund, the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, associate synagogues of the United Synagogue, the War Graves Commission, Zionist groups, the Talmud Torah Trust and the War Victims Fund.

Also correspondence with Jewish congregations throughout the United Kingdom and in countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States of America; correspondence relating to matters including shechita, Jews in Ukraine, Germany and Poland, war orphans, rabbinical exams, mikvah, marriages, kabolohs, disarmament, the Coronation of King George VI (1937), and pastoral tours of Wales and Ireland; papers relating to World War One including services for Jewish soldiers, the Kosher Food Fund, correspondence with chaplains, distribution of kosher foods, prisoners of war and Palestine Relief Fund, and copies of publications and sermons.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records of Chief Rabbi Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, 1913-1992. The records of Lord Jakobovits are the single largest part of the archive, indicative of the large volume of work undertaken and the relative speed with which the records were passed onto London Metropolitan Archives.

Records relating to the Office of the Chief Rabbi and Chief Rabbi's Cabinet including papers relating to social functions and administration. Correspondence with the Board of Deputies, London Beth Din and United Synagogue. Papers relating to Jewish communal organisations including the Kol Nidre Appeal and the Joint Israel Appeal.

Papers relating to education and Chaplaincy Boards including general correspondence, the Education Reform Act 1988, Jews' College, individual schools, colleges and universities, the University Jewish Chaplaincy Board, and the National Jewish Chaplaincy Board. Papers of the Jewish Educational Development Trust including administration, correspondence, financial records, trustees, donors, applications, fundraising and policies.

Papers relating to Jewish religious organisations including Reform, Liberal and Sephardi congregations and the Spanish and Portuguese Community. Papers relating to congregations and ministers in Great Britain including the registration of synagogues, the National Jewish Chaplaincy Board and provincial congregations.

Halacha [a legal decision regarding a matter or case for which there is no direct enactment in the Mosaic law, deduced by analogy from this law or from the Scriptures] and rulings on religious questions including correspondence, rulings relating to burial practices, the participation of women in communities, blasphemy, medical ethics, circumcision, bar mitzvah, marriage, conversions, get [divorce] legislation, High Holy Days and mikvaot. Papers relating to Shechita [slaughtering practices] and Kashrut [laws relating to food] including correspondence and minutes of the London Board for Shechita and the National Council of Shechita Boards of Great Britain, general correspondence, reports, and defence of shechita practices.

Papers relating to bills in the House of Lords. Correspondence with central Government departments and local authorities, including correspondence with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Correspondence with welfare organisations and papers relating to ageing, child abuse, crime, drugs, homelessness, hospice care, disabled people and individual welfare cases. Correspondence with religious leaders, individuals, and organisations relating to Israel, including the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Correspondence with overseas congregations including those in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Ireland, Russia, South Africa, and the United States of America and correspondence with the Conference of European Rabbis. Papers relating to Soviet Jewry including correspondence, appeals and reports.

Papers relating to interfaith organisations including the Council of Christians and Jews. Papers relating to medical ethics including abortion, sex education, AIDS, organ transplants, Tay-Sachs disease and abortion. Papers relating to social issues including business ethics, disarmament, homosexuality, inner cities, disasters, and race relations. Correspondence relating to the representation of the Chief Rabbi on various public bodies and patronage by the Chief Rabbi.

Copies of sermons, addresses, publications from the office of the Chief Rabbi, press and publicity, broadcasts and messages from the Chief Rabbi. Personal papers including household accounts, letters of thanks and messages of sympathy. Papers relating to the Chief Rabbinate Fund including the distribution of funds to various causes.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records of the Federation of Synagogues, 1887 - 1988. The records include a comprehensive set of minutes of the Federation; a less comprehensive but nonetheless interesting collection of minute books from the individual congregations; and minutes of other institutions connected with the Federation. There are also financial accounts, reports, property files (including synagogue plans), notice books and correspondence files which give a fuller picture of life of the Federation; and records of the East London Mikvah Committee; Federation Burial Society and London Talmud Torah Council.

Records of the Jewish Memorial Council, 1899-2001. The archive mainly consists of files and volumes of minutes and working papers. The records of the Reverend Malcolm Weisman are noteworthy for the detail they provide on the survival of Judaism in small, often isolated, communities.

Records of the Belmont Synagogue, covering the whole range of activities undertaken by the Synagogue. In particular, the administration is well represented with minutes, agendas and correspondence from all the main committees; the Council of Management, Membership, Building Fund, Ladies Guild, Parents Association, Education and Social Activity Group.

Information on the religious life can be gleaned from files on Rabbi selection, Bat Chayil Ceremony, Yom Naroim and the Sefer Torah as well as from the substantial photographic collection which also presents a good picture of the social side of the community.

PLEASE NOTE that written permission from the depositors is required to access this collection.

Papers, c1889-1970, of Professor Peter Malcolm Holt, chiefly comprising collected notes, facsimiles and microfilms of manuscripts relating to Muhammed Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah, the Mahdi. The papers relate to Holt's major works The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881-1898 and The Cambridge History of Islam.

Records of Jews' College (later known as the London School of Jewish Studies), including constitution; minutes of meetings of the College Council and various committees; minutes of annual general meetings; student attendance registers; student admission registers; reports on students; papers relating to exams; agreements relating to property; financial accounts; papers of staff; papers relating to teaching; plans; photographs; printed material. Also papers relating to the Library including meeting minutes and reports, agreements, correspondence and centenary celebrations; and papers relating to Northwold Road Synagogue include a congregation scrapbook, congregation attendance register and marriage certificates.

Records of the Deputy for the Chief Rabbi, 1942-1950, comprising correspondence with various individuals and organisations, including provincial congregations in Wales and England and congregations in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Palestine, Russia, South Africa and the United States of America.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Records from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel Brodie, 1917-1967, including public messages, circular letters, prayers and appeals issued by the Chief Rabbi; orders of service; correspondence with a variety of individuals and organisations including the Anglo-Jewish Association, Aria College, the London Beth Din, the Board of Deputies, the Central Council of Jewish Religious Education, Jewish Day Schools Council, the Jewish Board of Guardians, Jews' College, the London Jewish Hospital; the Kashrus Commission; the Kosher School Meals Service, the London Board of Jewish Religious Education, London County Council, the Rabbinical Commission, the London Board for Shechita, and the United Synagogue.

Correspondence with congregations in Great Britain and Ireland, including arrangements for pastoral tours, and correspondence with congregations abroad including in America, Australia, Canada, France, India, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa and the Soviet Union.

Correspondence on subjects including anti-semitism, kosher food, marriage, relief organisations, congregations, education, yeshivot, refugees, Hebrew pronunciation, Israel, liberal Judaism and reform synagogue, Russian Jews, shechita, sopherim training, and teacher training.

Papers relating to the Committee on Calendar Reform including minutes and resolutions of protest. Papers relating to refugees and post-war reconstruction, including report on Belsen Concentration Camp, reports and correspondence of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, Commission on the Status of Jewish War Orphans in Europe, Refugee Rabbis Relief Programme and speeches made at the League of Nations.

PLEASE NOTE: Records can only be accessed with the written permission of the depositor. Contact the Chief Executive, Office of Chief Rabbi, 735 High Road, North Finchley, London NW12 OUS.

Correspondence of Christians in Jerusalem, 1828-1904, comprising a printed letter from William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Prelates of the Eastern Churches, concerning the new Anglican Bishopric in Jerusalem, 1841, and article by A L Tibawi (The Muslim World, lxxix, no 1, 1979) concerning the letter; manuscript letter from the Agent of the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, 1868; manuscript letters from Arab Protestants, one to the Church Missionary Society and one to Bishop Barclay, 1880; correspondence and papers exchanged between George Blyth, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, and Khalil Sakakini, and Isa al-Isa, discussing activities of the Arabic Literary Club and various educational matters, 1903-1904.

Papers, 1931-1990, of Sir James Norman Dalrymple Anderson, comprising correspondence, articles and documents concerned with Islamic law in the Middle East and East Africa; sermons, lectures and notes on Christianity; personal correspondence including an exchange of letters with the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1960; and personal documents.