Information about the archives of the Board of Deputies

The archives of the Board of Deputies were first sorted and catalogued by a professional archivist in the 1970s under the auspices of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (RCHM). A catalogue was produced in 1976 which included the records from 1830 up to 1966. The records were retained in the custody of the Board at Woburn House until 1992 when they were transferred to the Greater London Record Office, now known as the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), where they are considered to be a valuable and comprehensive record of the Jewish Community.

Further deposits of archives were made over the following years to the LMA, and the order and classification of the 1976 RCHM list has been retained with later deposits integrated into its structure. The current catalogue includes records from the Trades Advisory Council which were not included in the 1976 RCHM listing as they had already been deposited in the Public Record Office. They were transferred to the LMA at the wish of the Board in 1995, so that all archive material was under one roof. They now consist of approximately 310 feet of files, volumes, bundles of papers, photographs, cassette and video tapes, films, publications and leaflets.

Some selected records containing very personal information have been closed for periods of thirty, fifty or one hundred years in consultation with the staff at the Board.

The archives are available for consultation only with the written consent of the Administrative Director of the Board. (see Application)

A general list of categories is below, but for a detailed list and description of files within each category, reference will need to be made to the Index held at the LMA or the Board's offices.

Click here to go to the London Metropolitan Archives  website 

LIST OF CATEGORIES

ACC/3121/A - Minutes

This series consists of the minutes, agendas, reports, attendance lists and some lists of deputies of the Board. The early Minute Books written in Portuguese are retained in the custody of the Board and have not been included in this catalogue.

ACC/3121/B - Presidents and Secretaries Papers

These series reflect the period 1840-1961. After that the records of the Presidents and Secretaries are listed with the more general series, such as the ACC/3121/E01-04.

The series ACC/3121/B02 contains the working papers of Charles Emanuel and the number of files reflects the increase in the workload of the Board of this period.

The series ACC/3121/BO4 is arranged by an alphabetical code which was imposed on the records between 1927 and 1931.

ACC/3121/C - Committees and Departments

Many of the minutes and files for the Defence Committee have been retained by the Board.

In ACC/3121/CO7, the series on the Disused Cemeteries Committee, all papers relating to burial grounds 1892 - 1966 were listed here in 1976 by the RCHM Archivist, apart from papers on Cheltenham Burial Ground, which are listed with the Congregational files in AC/3121/DO2/21-22.

Much of the work of the Executive Committee (ACC/3121/C10) consisted of joint meetings with other Committees and papers relating to these activities may be found with the appropriate committees. The list ACC/3121/C10 should therefore not be seen as a complete representation of the work of the Executive Committee.

The series ACC/3121/C13 contains the records of the Trades Advisory Council. The original catalogue by the RCHM entered the records within this series but they were not physically catalogued as such until they were transferred from the Public Record Office to the LMA in 1995. Some of the early case files have either been lost before the transfer or may have been weeded at an unspecified time.

ACC/3121/D - Congregations

These records are the working files of congregations which elected Deputies to the Board and so contain routine papers which are duplicated elsewhere. The files predating the triennial election of 1976 were heavily weeded by the RCHM.

ACC/3121/E - General Correspondence

The files in these four series complement those in the B and C classes and include files on similar subjects for the late twentieth century.

The records in ACC/3121/EO3 were arranged by the Board in numbered boxes and were listed as such listed by the RCHM. Where there are numbers missing there are no surviving boxes, because the boxes were missing in 1976 or were weeded then.

ACC/3121/EO4 consists of a series of records which came to the LMA in 1995 and were then augmented as ACC/3808. The general index at the back of the catalogue should be used to research specific areas of interest.

ACC/3121/F - Finance

Minutes of the Finance Committee have been listed here rather than in

ACC/3121/C.

ACC/3121/G - Publications

The publications catalogued are mainly works produced by the Board or people closely associated with it. A few significant publications not produced by the Board have also been included in it.

ACC/3121/H - Duplicate Marriage Registers

Since the Marriage Registration Act 1836 named the President of the Board of Deputies as the authority for certifying the Marriage Secretaries for Synagogues, the Board has been the legal place of deposit for duplicate Marriage Registers from synagogues. ACC/3121/EO5/32 is a list of these registers up to 1976, but the Marriage Registers themselves are not held at the LMA.

APPLICATION to use archives

Please print and fill in an Application Form which can enable researchers to gain access to the archives. When completed you should send it together with a REFERENCE, to the Administrative Director at the Board.

Click here to go to the London Metropolitan Archives  website