Maurice Bond's Record Office Memorandum 1947

It was in the inter-war period that a non-governmental Modern Archive Movement emerged in the UK. It was spearheaded by the British Records Association (BRA) and sought to establish a framework for the location and custody of records. Maurice Bond was part of this school of thought describing the BRA as a ‘private society founded to remedy official inaction'.

Inaction was not an accusation you could level at then Clerk of the Parliaments, Henry Badeley who in 1937 approved a Report on the House of Lords Archive recommending a Record Office be created with its own Clerkship. He kept to his recommendation and in 1947 his new clerk Maurice Bond drafted a blueprint for the office's greater professionalism with this memorandum laying the foundation stone of his future successes.