RECORDS. Selections. Mr. Monckton Milnes,1 towards the close of the session of 1848, PUBLIC catechised Sir G. Grey, who said the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no funds. Still the subject did not quite drop, for the Com- Part II. mittee on Miscellaneous Estimates in 1848, reported that, "it seems that considerable expense is incurred, owing to the different places in which these documents are kept, and it would be advisable that parliament should speedily determine whether any build- Mr. M. ing large enough for their tenure should be erected." We observe that Mr. M. Milnes has this year already begun his annual questionings, which we hope he is going to prosecute with a little more energy than before, or he had better give up the matter. We suggest that he should forthwith call attention to the resolution of the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee, coupling it with another, that the House is prepared to vote the necessary funds for commencing the structure forthwith. We have no faith that this recommendation will meet with any better fate than its predecessors have done, unless the attention of ministers is called to it in a way they cannot elude. If the question were now an open one, and disconnected with economical reasons, which would be the best site of the Public Record Office, we might perhaps hesitate to fix upon the Rolls Estate;-not, certainly, if the convenience of the legal profession were the only consideration. Unquestionably it is that part of the public who have the most occasion to use the Public Records in the way of business, and for them the Rolls Estate is by far the most suitable site, from its adjacency to the law offices and the inns of court. But we apprehend the question of site must be considered as quite settled.' Since 1834, a very large portion of the ground belonging to the Rolls Estate has been kept unoccupied, for the express purpose of being used as the site of the Public Record Office, when it should be wanted. And the mere delay already has cost some £20,000, 1 Now Lord Houghton, who, when Mr. C. Buller became a minister, interested himself in the Public Records question in Parliament. The longer the question is delayed, the more it creates difficulties. Last year we heard of proposals from parties in Westminster, who wanted to sell their land at extravagant prices, Milnes' ac tion. PUBLIC A.D. 1849. for it would not be too much to value the annual loss thus entailed by keeping the ground useless, at some £1,200 a-year. The surveyor of the Office of Woods has reported that "The Rolls Estate is indisputably the cheapest site in London, for in no other part could so large an area be acquired except at a cost far exceeding the value of this estate." And we apprehend the argument of greatest cheapness is likely to have most weight at the present time. The Rolls Estate is by far the cheapest site, and one which, if the Record Office be disconnected from metropolitan improvements, requires no outlay at all in the purchase of ground. The ground may be used to-morrow; there is nothing whatever wanting to commence the foundations of the building instantly, but the order and the funds to pay the labour of digging. Without pulling down a single house, there are these 200 square feet of ground, which, with the houses in the hands of the Crown, would suffice to erect a repository large enough to hold the Records in Carlton Ride and the Tower of London, which are stated by Mr. Braidwood to be in the greatest jeopardy. The cost of erecting all the buildings of the complete office, with all its adjuncts, has been estimated at £206,500; but we apprehend a grant of £50,000 made in the next two years, would be ample to place most of the Public Records in actual safety. We contend that the Government is bound to find £25,000 for doing this in the present session and if Sir Robert Peel really meant what he said lately at the dinner of the Geological Society, when he candidly avowed that Government had too much preferred expenditure for war over outlays for objects of peace and science, he would be found a supporter of the proposal. In any case, whether it receive the countenance of either the present or the last Prime Minister, we advise some merchant at least "of ordinary prudence"-Mr. T. Baring or Mr. Cobden―to divide the House of Commons on the question, that the nation ought not any longer to subject its Records to perils, to which "no merchant of ordinary prudence would subject his books of account." 1 : 1 This was the last article I wrote connected with the Public Records. LIST OF VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS CONNECTED PUBLIC RECORDS, &c., WRITTEN BY HENRY COLE. Ex I. RECORDS. Part II. Selections. XCERPTA HISTORICA: or, Illustrations of English His- PUBLIC tory. Printed by and for Samuel Bentley, MDCCCXXXI. Articles contributed by Henry Cole-1. Monsters which appeared 1831-1849. in the time of Henry III. 2. Conflagration of Norwich Cathedral, 11 August, 1272. 3. Convention between Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward I., and Louis IX. (St. Louis), relative to Edward's Crusade to the Holy Land, 53-4 Hen. III. 1269. 4. Attempted Assassination of Edward I. at Acre. 5. Preparations for the Coronation of Edward I. (pp. 251-277). 2. Amplification, by Henry Cole, of Mr. Palgrave's explanatory note, in pages 66 and 67 of his reply. 1832. Pamphlet. 8vo. 3. PUBLIC RECORDS.-The public advantages of entrusting the Records of the Exchequer belonging to the offices of the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer and Clerk of the Pipe, to the Irresponsible custody of the King's Remembrancer, determined by the present condition of that officer's own Records. In a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Record Commission, by a Member of the Temple. "Thine own mouth condemneth thee; and not I."-JOB. London: Henry Butterworth, 7, Fleet Street. 1834. Pamphlet. 8vo. 4. RECORD COMMISSION.-A letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons, as chairman of PUBLIC A.D. 1831-1849. Part II. the Commission on Public Records, on the conduct of C. Purton Cooper, Esq., Sec. Com. Pub. Rec., and the general management of the Commission. By Henry Cole, one of the Sub-Commissioners. London. 1836. Pamphlet. 8vo. 5. RECORD COMMISSION.-Conduct of C. Purton Cooper, Esq. 1836. Pamphlet, by H. C. 8vo. 6. REPORT, RESOLUTIONS, and PROCEEDINGS of the SELECT COMMITTEE of the HOUSE OF COMMONS, appointed to inquire into the management and affairs of the Record Commission, and the present State of the Records of the United Kingdom; with illustrative notes, selected from the evidence taken before the Committee, and documents printed by the Record Commission. Edited by H. C. London: James Ridgway & Son, Piccadilly. 1837. 8vo. Price 2s. 6d. 7. Remarks on Certain Evils to which the PRINTED EVIDENCE taken by the Committees of the House of Commons is at present subject, by H. C. Privately printed. 1836. 8. LORD BROUGHAM'S RECORD COMMISSION.-"Things, sire, base." -CYMBELINE. An article written by H. C. and published in "Fraser's Magazine," Feb., 1837, Vol. XV., No. LXXXVI. Written with much personal feeling. 9. THE RECORD COMMISSION. An article written by H. C. and printed in the "Law Magazine," Vol. XVII., Art. V., p. 80. [Attributed by some to Mr. Charles Buller, but written by H. C.] 10. Mr. Cole's Report to Lord Langdale, explaining the Plan of his CALENDAR to the Records at the EXCHEQUER OF PLEAS. 1837. Published in Deputy-Keeper's Report. II. HENRY the VIII.'s Scheme of Bishopricks. 8vo. Knight & Co. 1838. Only 250 copies printed. 12. Reports and Particulars of the Decayed Rolls of the Common Pleas in the Carlton Ride, furnished by the Assistant-Keeper (Mr. Cole). 1840. 13. THE NEW RECORD SYSTEM. From "Law Magazine," No. L. 1840. 14. THE ANGLO-SAXON LAWS. Art. VI., "Law Magazine," Vol. XXVIII., No. LVIII. 1841. 15. Extracts from General Reports of the Assistant-Keeper at the Carlton Ride (Mr. Cole). Jan., 1841; also April and Sept., 1841. 16. History of the Public Records, being an article printed in the "Penny Cyclopædia." 1841. 17. Mr. Cole's observations upon "Coast Bonds" in Carlton Ride. 1842. 18. PROGRESS OF THE NEW RECORD SYSTEM.-Consolidation of Records and Offices. A Review of the Second, Third, and Fourth Reports of the Deputy-Keeper, 1841, 1842, 1843. Art. VII. in "Law Magazine." 19. Extracts and Statements from the Reports of Proceedings of the Assistant-Keeper at the Carlton Ride. 1843. 20. LEGAL RETROSPECTIONS. Art. III. in Vol. XXXI., No. LXIII., of "Law Magazine;" another article in Vol. XXXI., No. LXIV., Art. V., p. 337, 1843. Article III. gave an inventory of "Bookes of William Rastall, late one of the Justices of the Queens Benche, remaynyng in his late lodginge within Sergeants Inne in London;" and Article V. gave extracts from John Manningham's Diary (No. 5,353 in Harleian MSS.). PUBLIC Part II. A.D. 1831-1847. |