A Brief History of Record Management at the National Archives

Work on the official history of criminal justice prompted Paul Rock's interest in why it was that so many government papers, amounting to some 98% of the files produced, have been destroyed over the years. Successive crises in the accumulation of records, accompanied by only a limited increase in the shelving capacity of the Public Record Office - later The National Archives - led in the 1950s and beyond to a firm emphasis being placed on the destruction rather than the retention of papers. Officials and politicians were adamant that the unforeseeable demands which future historians might make on the archives had to be accorded less importance than the economic practicalities of what was called 'weeding'.