Appointment of William Dilks, of Stratford, then in Essex, as Trustee of the Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trust, 1728.

Printed bye-laws with respect to new streets and buildings in the Urban District of Southgate, 1898.

Records of the Staines Local Board of Health, Urban District Council and Rural District Council relating to road and bridge maintenance, provision of utilities and sewer and drainage works, 1876-1961, including correspondence; agreements; memoranda; contracts; deeds; copies of legislation; petitions; orders of the Local Government Board and licences.

This glass plate negative shows a street in Totteridge Fields. The street is unidentified and probably dates from around 1910.

Records of the Ramblers Association. This collection consists of administrative and publicity material relating to the national and local activities of the association, including minutes, financial material, details of the routes of well-known walks, press cuttings and press releases. It also contains subject files produced by the main Ramblers Association offices on the various campaigns and sites of interest with which the association has been involved. Separate deposits were also received of material generated from the offices of the Director of the association, the Assistant Director of the Access section and the Countryside Secretary of the Southern Area.

Maps from the Middlesex County Council Planning Department, 1920-1961, including map of London Airport (Heathrow); map showing allotments in Middlesex; maps of bye-passes, roads and highways; maps of school sites and playing fields; map of land liable for flooding; nature conservancy map; maps of drainage and sewerage; map of the Thames Riverside Walk; maps of the Central, North, South and West Planning Areas and map of parishes, unions, rural and urban sanitary districts.

MBW/1901-1908: Thames Floods (estimate of works required to repair damage caused by floods and estimates of works for defence against future flooding)

MBW/1909-1910: Redistribution Of Vestrymen (cuttings from minutes)

MBW/1911-1913: Water Supply (reports on the metropolis water supply)

MBW/1914-1916: Letters (in-letters, petitions, applications and out-letters)

MBW/1917-1919: Advertisements

MBW/1920-1924: Newspaper Cuttings

MBW/1925-1928: Staff Lists (including duties of officers)

MBW/1929-2309: Finance (including registers of contracts and agreements, salary books and rate books)

MBW/2310-2420: Printed Reports (including annual reports of the Board and Committees, architect's, engineer's and fire brigade reports, papers circulated to Board members, Bills and Acts of Parliament)

MBW/2421-2445: Contracts And Specifications for work on sewers, drains and embankments.

MBW/2446-2653: Plans (plans submitted to Parliament, plans of local improvements arranged by parish, plans of artisan's dwellings, plans of the metropolis water supply, plans of Thames floods, plans of parks and open spaces, plans presented to the Board and to various Committees to accompany reports, memorials and proposals for improvements, creation of parks, drainage, bridges, roads and tunnels, plans of railways)

MBW/2654-2656: District Surveyor (monthly returns and drainage applications)

MBW/2657-2663: Bridges (Accountant's Department papers concerning claims of the bridge companies whose bridges were acquired under the Metropolitan Toll Bridges Act 1877 and the Metropolitan Bridges Act 1883)

MBW/2664-2682: Thames Floods (volumes of duplicate copies of notices served on riparian [situated on the banks of a river] owners under the Metropolis Management (Thames River Prevention of Floods) Amendment Act 1879 and Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act, 1882, with associated plans and riverfront elevations)

MBW/2683-2685: Financial Records (Accountant's Department papers)

MBW/2686-2807: Thames Floods (plans and estimates for flood prevention works and plans of river frontage with elevations of riparian [situated on the banks of a river] properties)

MBW/2808-2812: Thames Soundings

MBW/2813-2830: Specifications (volumes of specifications for housing, fire stations, bridges, drainage, parks, embankments and sewers)

MBW/2831-2837: Contract Books and Registers

MBW/2838-2840: Rate Books

MBW/P: Plans

MBW/OW: Office of Works (papers relating to the Chelsea Bridge and Embankment, Westminster Bridge, Battersea Park, Kennington Park and Victoria Park)

MBW/BC: Bridge Company (papers relating to Vauxhall Bridge)

Photograph album entitled 'Ellichpur, Berar, India, September 1893', containing 136 captioned photographs, Sep 1889-Jul 1894, including visit to Brussels and Ostend, Belgium, 1889; Mandalay and Rangoon, Burma, Dec 1889; Bombay, India, 1892; the arrival, mounting and testing of 10 inch breech loading gun, Colabra South Battery, Bombay, Mar-Sep 1892; photograph of Lt Gen Hon Sir James Charlemagne Dormer, Commander-in-Chief, Madras, India, examining large calibre gun, Beder Fort, Beder, India, Dec 1892. Photograph album containing 150 captioned photographs, Jun 1894-Mar 1908, including Simla, India, 1894; the Bhori Ghaut Railway, and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, India, 1896-1898; Burma, 1906-1907, with printed article by Woods entitled 'A motor car in the Southern Shan hills of Burmah' from Indian Motor News, Aug 1908. Photograph album containing 84 photographs on expedition in Mongolia, Apr-May 1902, with typescript report by Woods to the Deputy Quartermaster General for Intelligence, China Force, Tientsin, North China, entitled 'General report on tour to Lama Miao and back via the Wei Chang (Imperial hunting grounds)', Aug 1902; also, printed report entitled 'China Expedition - Despatches', 24 Sep 1902, by Maj Gen O'Moore Creagh, General Officer Commanding China Force, published in The Royal Engineers Journal, 1 Jan 1903. Photograph album containing 129 captioned photographs, many colour tinted, of Japan and the USA, 1904, and the UK and Switzerland, 1905. Two photograph albums containing 72 captioned photographs including Tientsin and the Yangtse river, China, 1904, and Kilkeel, Ireland, 1905.

Records of the London County Council Architect's Department relating to the control of buildings and streets under the London Buildings Act 1894 and subsequent Acts. Records include subject and policy files (including procedures, precedents, diagrams, plans, petitions, legislation, sub-committee papers, statistics, bye-laws, reviews, standards and fire reports), 1856-1965; subject and policy files for the District Surveyors, 1856-1936; subject and policy files for new building materials, 1891-1941; returns and abstracts of the District Surveyors, 1889-1954; registers of alterations to names of streets and numbering of houses, 1856-1935; reports, 1889-1965, on matters concerning building regulation, on matters affecting the District Surveyors and on the naming and numbering of streets; Ordnance Survey maps of London amended to show street name changes, proposed new roads, building numbering, borough boundaries and future road positions, 1883-1967.

Minutes and presented papers of London County Council special and joint committees, 1889-1965, as follows:

Allegations (Council Officials) Committee

Special Committee on the Establishment of an Ambulance Service

Special Committee on Building Control

Advisory Committee on the Control on the Construction of Buildings in London

Charing Cross Bridge Advisory Committee

Church of England Advisory Board on Spiritual Ministration

Special Committee on Contracts

Special Joint Committee on the provision of Coroner's Courts and Mortuaries

Council Chamber and Offices Committee

Special Committee on the transfer of County Business

County Hall Luncheon Club Committee

County Rate Committee

Departmental Committees on the Organisation and Working of LCC Departments

Special Committee on the Office of Deputy Chairman of the Council

Advisory Committee on the Design of Consumer Goods

Special Committee on Finance Bill, 1914

Special Committee on Fire Insurance

Greater London Regional Planning Committee

Meetings of Heads of Departments

Special Committee on Health Administration in London

Hospitals Committee

Interim Panel

Juveniles Committee

Lack of Employment Conference

Joint Committee on the working of the Leyton tramways

Loan Fund for Prospective Teachers

Special Committee on Local Expenditure

Local Pension Committee

Special Committee on Locomotion and Transport in London

London Air Terminal

Advisory Committee on the Amendment of the London Building Act, 1930

Special Committee on London Electricity Supply

Special Committee on changes in London Local Government

Special Committee on London Government

London War Pensions Committee

Special Joint Committee on the Control of lunatics, imbeciles and infectious poor

Advisory Committee on combined medical appointments in Division 9 of the LCC Public Health Department

Members and Staff Committee

Joint Committee of Members and School-keepers

Special Committee of Inquiry into certain matters of administration in the Mental Hospitals Department

Sub-committee of the Provisional LCC appointed to confer with a Committee of the Metropolitan Board of Works

Special Committee on the provision of New Offices

Officers (Education) Superannuation Committee

Conference on Open Spaces for recreational purposes

Special Committee on the Organisation of the Council's Service

Poor Law Committee

Procedure Committee

Richmond Hill (Preservation of View) Executive Committee

Committee of Inquiry on Sadlers Wells

Special Committee on Staff Appeals

Conference on regulations in connection with Streets and Street traffic

Special Committee on the allocation of the cost of Street Improvements along Tramway Routes

Survey of London (Joint Publishing) Committee

Teacher's Superannuation Committee

Special Committee on Technical Education

Special Committee on Thames Bridges

Joint Committee on Thames Flood Prevention

Special Committee on Traffic

Tramways Committee

Special Joint Sub-committee on the Typhoid Fever Epidemic in Maidstone and the London Water Supply

Special Committee on the Unemployment

Special Committee on the Valuation of Land

Special Committee on the War Estimates

Special Committee on the Works Department

Please note that copies of these minutes and papers are on open access in the Information Area.

Records of the London County Council Valuation Department, 1891-1965, including papers on the assessment of railways in London; press cuttings and other papers relating to transport organisation including fares and facilities, River Thames passenger services, canals, policy, railways, parking, congestion, air fares, the British Transport Commission, the London Transport Executive, pay and working conditions, bus services, arterial roads, the London Traffic Act, 1924; papers relating to town planning schemes; legislation affecting London and papers relating to road improvement schemes.

Registers of applications for mortgages and housing loans under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts and the Housing Acts. Returns of gross and rateable value of properties by locality; pamphlets, articles and posters relating to street and road improvements; site plans of LCC hospital properties transferred to the Ministry of Health in July 1948 under the National Health Service Act, 1946.

Photocopies of papers relating to his internment as a POW by the Japanese, 1943, comprising account of the treatment of H Force during their work on the Burma-Thailand railway, 1943, written [for the Malayan Government] in 1945; notebook containing financial accounts and a register of deaths for 5 Bn, H Force, 1943; account of the experiences of 1 Subsection, H Force, Sep-Nov 1943, written in 1943.

Bridge House Estates papers including bridgemasters' accounts rolls, 1381-1398; bridgemaster's annual accounts and rentals, 1404-1850; weekly payments, 1404-1445 and 1505-1849; bill books, 1745-1789 and 1815-1889; receipt books, 1598-1851; cash books, 1602-1784; fair cash books, 1713-1851; rough cash books, 1713-1810, miscellaneous ledgers and cash books, 1787-1819; materials sold, 1614-1682; corn and granary books, 1568-1714; rent and arrears books, 1707-1941; papers relating to individual properties owned by the Trust, particularly leases and grants, and administrative papers.

Records of the Blackfriars Bridge (Repairing) Committee, comprising journals, 1833-1841; minutes, 1832-1843; rough minutes, 1834-1843 (including proceedings of Committee on 20 Nov 1838 on bringing gas into the City by mains over Blackfriars Bridge); committee papers, 1832-1843 and contracts, 1833-1841.

Minute books of the Consolidated Committee, Court of Common Council, 1846-1858.

Records of the Streets Committee, Commissioners of Sewers/Public Health Department, including minutes, 1865-1968; minute book of sub-committee on wharves, 1881-1897; minute book of sub-committee on contracts, 1898-1900; minute book of Parliamentary sub-committee, 1905-1915; committee papers, 1916-1958; report books, 1866-1947. Committee papers include files on various topics relating to public health, including: drainage and sewage works; subways; electric and gas lighting; gas and electricity supply; personnel issues including uniforms; telephone kiosks, byelaws for control of flags and banners; paving works; street cleaning; horses; refuse removal; destruction of bad eggs, Bermondsey; byelaws as to removal of house refuse and London traffic; waste paper; street numbering; dangerous structures; street accidents in Greater London; pedestrian crossing places; burial grounds; City gardens; snow removal; street lighting; mechanical cleaning vehicles; traffic control and statues and monuments.

Records of the Technical Services department relating to the City Engineer, including authority to set up posts to preserve foot passage, 1736; Order from the Common Council to remove projecting signs, water spouts and so on to prevent obstructions, 1764; abstract of streets, lanes, courts, alleys and so on within the City showing the position and depth of public sewers, by William Haywood, surveyor, 1847; papers regarding the scheme of Frank Forster, engineer, for the drainage of districts north of the Thames, 1850-1851; papers regarding the schemes of the Great London Drainage Company, 1852-1854; report by Joseph Bazalgette and William Haywood on the sewage and drainage north of the Thames, with related papers including plans, objections and correspondence, 1853-1855; report by Joseph Bazalgette and William Haywood on the sewage and drainage south of the Thames, 1856; plans by Joseph Bazalgette in connection with Southern high level sewers, 1861; papers regarding the construction of the Commissioners of Sewers' new offices at Basinghall Street, including reports, agreements, plans, photographs and correspondence, [1860]; papers regarding the Central London Railway including acts and bills, petitions, correspondence, memoranda, plans, progress reports, evidence and invoices, particularly for Bank, St Paul's and Chancery Lane stations, 1871 - 1909; papers relating to the Royal Commission on London Traffic, consisting of interviews and evidence presented by City officials including the mayor, engineer, surveyor, chair of Bridge House Estates Committee, Public Health Department medical officer, City Solicitor, Superintendent of Police and the Director of the Great Northern Railway Company, 1903-1904; regulations for the laying of mains and so on beneath the public streets and for opening and closing pavements in the City, 1909; annual report of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, 1926-1927; papers relating to the clearing and repair of war damage, 1941-1946; articles and notes relating to the history of street lighting in the City of London, 1941-1976; photograph albums recording various streets and walkways in the City, focusing on street signs, [1990]; the City Engineer Quality Commitment manual, 1993 and consultation paper The Way Ahead: traffic and the environment, 1993.

Also papers relating to the numbering and naming of City streets, including register of numbered and renamed streets, 1853-1899, lists of streets with corrections to their names, 1878-1982, London County Council orders and correspondence, 1898-1955, Greater London Council orders and correspondence, 1971-1979, orders for the renaming of specific streets, 1986-1997.

Also papers relating to the Holborn Valley Improvement works, including acts and bills, papers of the Improvement Committee, observations and reports, memorandums, correspondence, applications for jobs, publicity material, estimates and abstracts of costs, engineer's financial accounts, technical measurements and other data, contracts, notebooks, speeches, lists of properties affected by the works, sales catalogues, correspondence with gas, water and telegraph companies, photographs, papers relating to statuary on the bridge including the Prince Consort memorial and papers relating to the exhumation of St Andrew's churchyard and the removal of remains, 1863 - 1873.

Papers relating to street easements including registers of petitions and applications, 1849-1899; registers of licences for hoards and scaffolds, 1858-1897; register and rental of licences for easements, 1899-1902; counterfoil licences for easements under vaults, 1870-1899; counterfoil licences for easements under coal plates, cellar flaps and so on, 1870-1899; counterfoil licences for easements over private lamps, signboards, cranes and so on, 1870-1899; counterfoil licences for easements over sky-signs, 1891-1896; counterfoil licences for easements over and under, 1899-1907; counterfoil licences for easements over reflectors, 1899-1907; counterfoil licences for easements upon and beneath vaults, 1907-1954; counterfoil licences for easements over lamps, signboards, cranes and so on, 1907-1939; notices regarding cellar flaps, 1881-1891; notices regarding projections, issued under the Sewer Act, 1899-1932 and indexes to registers of petitions and applications, 1849-1899.

Records of Horne, Engall and Freeman, solicitors, [1200]-1953, consisting of practice papers, records deriving from clerkships and other official capacities and Mr Scott Freeman's personal records, collection of maps and prints of Middlesex and printed material on the history of Staines. The material relates predominantly to Staines but also includes Ashford, Cranford, Egham, Feltham and Stanwell.

Collection of letters, including:

• Letter from John Meryett at Hampton to Mr Ware, Scotland Yard, Westminster, 1746, regarding the King's River.

• Letter from the Marquess of Tichfield [Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex] to the Rt. Hon. William Windham [Secretary at War], 1796, concerning the identity of Whitfield Harvey, an ensign in the Westminster Regiment. Col Cawthorne suspects that the present holder of the commission is an imposter.

• Sworn statement by Thomas Meyer, made before R Ford at Bow Street, 1802, stating that from the examination of John Devlin, in custody at Liverpool, and the description of a hat in his possession, he believes the hat to be that worn by John Cole Steele when he was murdered, and that John Devlin is connected with the crime.

• Letter from W Budd to the magistrates of the Police Office, Bow Street, enclosing handbills [missing] giving a description of a former dragoon suspected of the murder of Mr George Sergeant.

• Letter from the Duke of Portland [Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex] to Viscount Melbourne, 1831, informing him that no accurate estimate of the numbers who "may be likely to join their colours" for militia exercise can be given from the numbers of those enrolled in the County of Middlesex, except in the case of country parishes.

Records of the Pudney family of Sunbury including notes on notes on crops, yields, dates of work done on Manor Farm, Sunbury; valuations; leases of farmland at Ashford and Hersham; receipts; poor rate assessment book for the parish of Sunbury, 1857 and copy of accounts of surveyors of highways, 1875-1876, for the parish of Sunbury, 1876.

Records of the New River Company, comprising lease of a watercourse from main water pipe at back side of Saint Clement Danes to the private dwelling house of Thomas Dows, gentleman, 1697.

Papers and plans relating to the redevelopment of Liverpool Street and Broad Street stations, 1961-1984; and papers and photographs relating to the redevelopment of Blackfriars station, 1975 and 1977.

Share certificates in the Grand Surrey Canal (numbers 1513-1522), belonging to Daniel Birkett, Hatton Garden, 1813.

Records of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway Company, comprising Directors' Meetings minutes; Proprietors' meetings minutes; Wotton Tramway Committee minutes; and Contract Plan and Sections for the Aylesbury - Verney Railway.

Records of the Hammersmith and City Railway, including Board meeting minutes; General meeting minutes; Board of Trade inspection reports; agreements, tenders and contracts; list of staff; financial accounts and petitions from inhabitants of Westbourne Park for a station between Notting Hill and Bishops Road.

Records of the London Passenger Transport Board, including minutes of Meetings of the Board; reports to the Board; album of photographs illustrating the catering facilities afforded by the LPTB to shelterers in the London Tubes during the air raids on London; minutes of Accounts Advisory Committee; plans and sections; tenders, specifications and contracts; Traffic Circulars (Central Buses); papers relating to the Passenger Pooling Scheme; diaries; official booklets, pamphlets and leaflets; and appointment books, issued annually (those filed herewith have had the calendar leaves extracted but the interesting photographs which interspersed them are left in position. They give a true contemporary picture of the life of London and its surroundings, including its building and transport).

Records of the Metropolitan District Railway, including minutes of Board Meetings, General Meetings, the Traffic, Way and Works Committee, the Law, Parliamentary and Lands Committee, Stock Holders Meetings, Executive Officers Meetings and Standing Joint Committee; guard books containing copies of agreements with other railway companies and non-railway companies; volumes of statistics; financial ledgers; volumes of monthly reports; notices issued jointly with Piccadilly Line of London Electric Railway, concerning track and signal alterations and the bringing into use of new lines in connection with the extension of Piccadilly Line trains to Hounslow, South Harrow and Enfield West and Shareholders' Association circulars, newspaper cuttings and so on.

Report entitled "Post War Development - Passenger Traffic: Report on visit to stations (appendix H)". The report contains notes and general comments on various passenger stations and a variety of photographs of the stations and their concourses. The stations belonged to different operators and comprise:

London Passenger Transport Board: Finchley Road, Rayner's Lane, Uxbridge, Harrow on the Hill
Southern Railway: Richmond, Kingston, Surbiton
London Midland and Scottish: Luton, Apsley
Great Western Railway: Leamington Spa
London and North Eastern Railway: Loughton.

Records relating to Kew Bridge Tontine, comprising a tontine annuity certificate, 1775-1836.

Circular from the "Society for Erecting and Maintaining A Building in the Metropolis For the Meeting of Religious, Charitable, and Scientific Institutions", including plans of the proposed building between Exeter Street and the Strand [later called Exeter Hall, 272 Strand], 1829 and copy of the Ninth Annual Report of the Society For Erecting and Maintaining A Building Called Exeter Hall For the Meeting of Religious, Charitable and Scientific Institutions, 1834.

Copy of the report of the London and Greenwich Railway, read at the first General Half Yearly Meeting of the Proprietors held at the London Tavern, Bishopsgate Street, on 9 February 1841.

Records from the Lee Conservancy Board Engineer's Office at Enfield Lock. The engineer appears also to have been responsible to the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board (for example, see Acc 2423/062).

The collection consists of nineteenth and twentieth century plans, papers and volumes concerning the Lee Conservancy Board, the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board, and the British Waterways Board, covering many aspects of maintenance work on waterways and administration. The papers comprise:

• Plans 1760-1954 (ACC 2423/P/0001-3786) A large proportion of the collection consists of plans, many reused with annotations. Items relate to repair work on sewers and buildings, improvements to rivers and pumping stations, and the purchase of land for new projects.
  • Parliamentary Plans 1840-1965 (ACC 2423/PP/001-041) Plans produced for or submitted for Parliamentary Sessions to illustrate forthcoming work on waterways, for example, sewerage work, or waterways affected by the construction of railways.
  • Specific Plans 1867-1964 (ACC 2423/R/001-076) A set of plans illustrating large projects, which seems to have been kept as a set distinct and separate from the main ACC 2423/P plan series by the placing of the letter `R' before each original plan number.
  • General Plans 1828-1974 (ACC 2423/X/001-300) A collection of more general plans relating to projects focusing on improvements to the Lea River and Navigation, the Stort River and Navigation, the Bow Back Rivers and the Grand Union Canal.
  • Ordnance Survey Maps 1838-1955 (ACC 2423/05/001-139) Maps used to plan forthcoming work, with frequent annotations, particularly for the drafting of courses for sewers.
  • Engineers' Reports and Letter Books 1858-1961 (ACC 2423/001-136) Sets of volumes and files recording reports, contracts and specifications, and other maintenance records.
  • Administrative and Legal Documents 1829-1977 (ACC 2423/AL/001-119) Administrative files relating to accidents and damage, together with inventories of assets, minutes of meetings, and engineers' reports. Legal documents include material on agreements for sale and tenancy, the conveyance of property, and contracts.
  • Engineering and Maintenance Records 1892-1978 (ACC 2423/EM/001-097) Records relating to the maintenance and improvement of waterways, including development plans, moratorium surveys, pumping records, and related graphs and operation sheets.

Records of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association, later known as the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association; including minutes; agendas; constitution; annual reports; records relating to property and structures (fountains); correspondence; bequests and trusts; staff; financial accounts; plans; photographs; printed material including press cuttings and histories, and case files relating to individual fountains.

Records of the Great Western Railway, comprising agreements regarding siding accommodation near Brentford Station, 1930-1932.

Papers relating to the work of Witold Kay-Korzeniewicz, including development plans, photographs and reports for Paternoster Square, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Heathrow Airport, Elephant and Castle, King's Cross Station, Saint Pancras Station, South Bank, Festival of Britain, London Underground, Wembley Stadium, Grand Union Canal, and Warren Street Station.

Records of the Great Central Gas Consumers Company, 1846-1870, including certificate of formal registration of the company; reports of the Company's Directors; bills of costs in various legal transactions and suits; correspondence agreements; contracts for lighting various parishes; deeds and plans for various premises.

Purchase records of the Chelsea Waterworks Company, including works day books; day books; Pipe Yard day book; stock books; and records relating to the delivery and consumption of coal.

Financial records of the Grand Junction Waterworks Company, including half-yearly accounts; ledgers; journals; cash books; liabilities; balance books; revenue ledgers; office rate books; Collectors' recoveries and meter collections.

General records of the Grand Junction Waterworks Company, including examples of forms printed and distributed by the company; general index of drawings; papers relating to rate assessment appeals; valuation of tools and working plant; and papers relating to Parliamentary Acts and Royal Commissions.

Corporate records of the Kent Waterworks Company, including Board of Directors' minute books; Committee minute books; Secretary's reports; correspondence and letter books; legal papers; records relating to shares, stocks and dividends; and contracts.

Purchase records of the London Bridge Waterworks Company comprising stock books, inventories and valuations.

Stock transfer records for the London Bridge Waterworks Company, comprising book of wills for deceased shareholders and elevation and plan of the great engine for the fifth arch of London Bridge.

This series relates to the conveyance of mails by Underground pneumatic tube in London. It comprises reports and papers produced and used by the committee appointed in 1909 by the Postmaster General to consider the introduction of the underground transmission of mails within London and plans of the proposed route for the railway, showing rail levels and junctions. It also contains a copy of the Post Office (London) Railway act and the patent granted to Hosiah Latimer Clark for the invention of apparatus for conveying post by pneumatic tube, (POST 20/30). Papers relating to the construction, maintenance and expansion of the Post Office (London) Railway are also present including specifications, invitations to tender, conditions of contract, estimate of costs and technical plans relating to the construction of new stations, car depots, subways, additions and alterations to stations, including the fitting and maintenance of electrical equipment. This is also demonstrated through numerous plans held within the collection. As well as the Manager's annual reports, there are also numerous files of miscellaneous correspondence, memoranda and reports from the Post Office to various departments and organisations regarding the Post Office (London) Railway, historical accounts. There are also two photograph albums of railway equipment and work being carried out on it.

Some of the plans show properties purchased by the Post Office following the passage of the Post Office (London) Railway Act in 1913. There is a series of signed plans dated 26 October 1914 showing the depth and route of the Post Office (London) railway below ground with details of tunnels, shield chambers, and shafts. There is also a series of plans marking individual and corporate properties along the proposed route of the Post Office Railway.

Papers relating to British railway history, especially that of the Great Western Railway (GWR) and railways in the London area, including books, maps, periodicals, timetables and several thousand photographs, c1920s-1980s. The books represent a strong collection on British railway history from earliest times to the early 1980s. The collection is less strong in periodicals but there are some substantial runs of major titles. There is a large collection of early railway maps including Airey and Railway Clearing House (RCH) maps; also Ordnance Survey maps and railway junction diagrams, and a substantial collection of Bradshaw guides, and working and passenger timetables, with the following archival material:

Clinker Collection comprising notes and correspondence relating to the publications of Charles Ralph Clinker on railway history, particularly his Register of closed passenger stations and goods depots in England, Scotland and Wales, 1830-1977 (1963, revised 1978) and papers relating to his 1982 revision of the History of the Great Western Railway (London, 1964) by E T MacDermot; timetables, including those for the Bristol area, 1880s-1970s; General Strike, 1926; timetables during other strikes, 1920s; Great Western and Midland, various notices; Midland and South Western Junction Railway timetables, 1885-1947; operation instructions, GWR, London Midland and Scottish (LMS), London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), Southern Railway (SR); GWR working of stations, 1939-1965; LMS Railway train marshalling, 1943-1944; LMS timetables, 1890s-1940s; train arrangements during World War One and World War Two, 1914-1918, 1939-1945; papers relating to Broadgauge conversion; papers relating to Golden Valley Railway and Leominster-Kington Railway; ephemera relating to the Hay Railway, 1811-1977; Southern Railway plans for stations west of Salisbury, 1905- (mainly 1920s-1930s); Severn Bridge, General Manager's file, 1936-1943; logging of train performances, 1918-1927; books and periodicals, including rare and 19th century printed material on the early railway system, particularly guidebooks and station instructions.

Garnett Collection, mainly comprising railway maps, particularly those produced from 1869 by John Airey, an employee of the RCH, and subsequently by the RCH itself, and also includes Ordnance Survey maps and railway maps produced by the various railway companies; catalogues and research notes by Garnett, including lists of maps prepared by Airey and the RCH, 1869-1960; Macaulay [Zachary] series for Great Britain, Ireland and London, 1851-1908; notes on tramways and railways in Port Talbot area; catalogues of station handbooks, 1851-1956, and railway junction diagrams (the Airey and RCH maps, station handbooks and junction diagrams were used to determine ownership of stations and junctions for commercial purposes).

Research notes and photographs relating to Railway structures by Stuart Kear (9 vols); typescript of Chronology of the construction of Britain's railways, 1856-1922 by Leslie James; research notes by John Palmer on 19th century railway periodicals and the Eastern Counties Railway in its formative years; research notebooks and papers of Harold Vernon Borley on the history of railways in London, used for his Chronology of London railways (Railway and Canal Historical Society, Oakham, 1982).

Locomotive and General Railway Collection, featuring several thousand photographs (photographer unknown) of British locomotives, particularly steam trains, 1920s-1970s.

Wookey Collection, comprising several thousand photographs of British railway stations and signal boxes.

Mowat Collection (of Professor Charles Loch Mowat, 1911-c1969), comprising 2500 photographs in albums of railway scenes, 1926-1969 (mostly 1942-1969, with a few before 1924). These are mostly of small and medium sized railway stations (trains are generally incidental), covering most of the United Kingdom, with particular emphasis on the GWR and Wales, with coverage of Somerset and Dorset, Midland and South Western Junction, Lincolnshire, Midland Railway in the West Country, Great Eastern, Glasgow and Edinburgh Suburban, Bristol Suburban, Ireland, and narrow gauge lines in the UK such as Ffestiniog, Penrhyn, Bishop's Castle and Ditton's Prior. He also covered south east of Manchester in 1962, including the Hayfield, Macclesfield, Buxton (London North Western and Midland) and North Staffordshire lines. The collection also includes Mowat's index to his photographs and 14 notebooks containing track diagrams and notes on the stations he photographed, c1920-1969.

The original Deed of Association of the English and Bristol Channels Ship Canal. Contains about 600 signatures, opposite each of which are shown the number of deposits paid and amount subscribed, c1825.

Papers relating to the part of Jacques Louis Chaumont de La Millière in the creation of legislation in the Assembleé Nationale Constituante relating to the Ponts et Chauseés (or bridges and highways) of France, 1790, including:

1. Letter from Millière to [Pierre Louis] Roederer introducing a memorandum entitled 'Observations pour servir de réponse à un mémoire sur les travaux publics du Languedoc...une partie d'administration aussi importante', 30 Oct 1790. The mémoire referred to appears to be that entitled 'Extrait d'Observations faites il y a quelques mois sur un mémoir de l'Ingénieur en chef de la cydevant province de Bretagne par lequel il proposait de conserver à Rennes l'École particulière des Ponts et Chaussées...les observations...pourront servir de réponse à un mémoire d'un directeur des Travaux Publics du Languedoc'.
2. Letter from Millière to [Pierre Louis] Roederer, 20 Oct 1790, enclosing the 'dernières observations...sur la nouvelle rédaction du decret proposé par M. [Charles François] Le Brun [Duc de Plaisance] relativement aux Ponts et Chausées', with brief note in Millière's hand on the principles of the organisation of the Ponts et Chausées, and an item headed 'Observations sur plusiers articles du dernier projet du decret concernant les Ponts et Chausées proposés par le Comité des Finances'.

2 letters sent from officers of the Sambre and Meuse Central Railway Company, London, to John Philippart, 1845. Describing developments and public interest in the Belgian railway and asking for Philippart's support as a member of the managements committee; an explanatory pamphlet accompanied the first letter.

Both letters are autograph, with the signatures of company employees: (i) Osmund Lewis; (ii) G D Carvalho.

Letter from N Geary of Fareham, [Hampshire] to Mr Gunner, Waltham, Hampshire, 14 Jan 1815. Asking Gunner to remind the magistrates of the Droxford Bench that they were to inspect the public roads over the Forest of Bere, which Geary had made 'remarkably good'; but since 'the whole of the public money is expended, and the roads are getting bad', he asks the magistrates either to discharge him, or give 'assistance and support without which it will be impossible for me to proceed without much injury to the parishes, and disgrace to myself ...'.

Autograph, with signature. Some pencilled queries in another hand appear on the dorse, e.g. 'Does it lega[ll]y come before us?'

Letter from Robert Stephenson of 24 Great George Street, [London] to Edward Ackroyd, 28 Jun 1845. Concerning the importance of good gradients and the 'engineering of the West Yorkshire [railways]'.

Manuscript memorandum, possibly dating from c1825-1830, addressed to 'Messrs. Gibson's, Bankers, London', describing the facilities and extent of the London docks.

Alphabetical list for applicants for the post of porter with the railway, giving name of applicant, residence, age, former employment, by whom recommended and remarks. Undated, probably c1837.