25 MILES ON SHELVES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLIII, Issue 5, 18 July 1916, Page 1

25 MILES ON SHELVES.

Uuknown to the millions who pass through the city of London everyi week, a work of unparalleled magnitude at what is known as the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane has been going on for a number of years. In this office there are 25 miles of shelves, all full of historical material, going back through the centuries as far as "Domesday Book" (says Tit Bits'). It costs over £26,000 a year to keep up the Record Office, the keeper of the records 'being the Master of the Rolls. The office was established by the Public Records Act in 1838, and the records were token there from the Tower, theChapter House, Westminster, and Rolls Chapel and elsewhere. Ever since that time the office has been constantly receiving accretion from the Laiw Courts, the Government Departments and from various other quarters* All sorts of records are kept, legal, historical, genealogical, statistical, and so varied are the contents of the office that antiquaii'iain research of aifonost , everyi kind 1 can be made. There yon will find the records of the Star Chamber and the old wards and liveries. State papers, domestic, colonial and foreign, formerly preserved in the State Paper Office in Whitehall, are also to be seen there. Usually 50 or 60 students are seen working in the Record Office every day, and' at any time there is the fascinating thought that one of them may make some interesting discovery.