The Final Reckoning: Using Death Duty Records To Research Wealth Holding In Nineteenth-Century England And Wales
by Alastair Owens and David R. Green

This article discusses the sources that enable researchers to reconstruct the ownership and transmission of wealth at death in nineteenth-century England and Wales. The complex and evolving regime of inheritance tax generated a variety of records that provide evidence of wealth-holding amongst individuals and families. Some of these, like probate records, are familiar to scholars, whilst others,like legacy, succession and estate duty records, are less well known. The article traces the fiscal evolution of these sources and explains how they can be linked to reconstruct wealth-portfolios of individuals, establishing the value of both their personal and real estate. It also assesses the accuracy of the assessments of worth that are contained within surviving documents. The article concludes by urging scholars to make greater use of death duty records, which have the potential to offer rich insights into nineteenth-century wealth holding.

Probing The 1970s: A Case Study: Inflation, Public Relations, And The Heath Administration, 1972
By Mark Dunton

The history of 1970s Britain has been re-appraised by journalists and historians in recent years. This article seeks to encourage contemporary historians interested in the 1970s to carry out detailed investigation of governmental files held by The National Archives, as these records give real insights into the mindset of government officials and ministers of the time. The records created by the Central Office of Information, and information officers in key government departments, are a rich source highlighting the relationship between government and the public. This is illustrated by the records of a proposed anti-inflation campaign of 1972 which are revealing on several levels. The records reveal: the level of concern of politicians and officials, faced with the danger posed by the new threat of spiralling inflation in the early 1970s - a concern reflected in the dramatic language of draft publicity texts; the low opinion of officials regarding the public's understanding of the inflation problem; and the dangerous prospect of a government overstepping the normal conventions regarding objectivity in government publicity. The case study shows how detailed probing of the public records can enable historians to acquire a richer and fuller understanding of the governance of Britain in the 1970s.

Government Record-Keeping In Kenya In The Context Of E-Government
by James Lowry
The Kenya government is rapidly introducing digital systems to improve services to citizens. Simultaneously, paper records are being digitised in line with a presidential decree that all government registries must be computerised. The management of the digital records that are being created by new systems, and paper records and their digital surrogates, created during digitisation, has not been systematically addressed. This article identifies the record-keeping regulation and infrastructure that must be improved if the Kenya government is to manage and preserve these records as authentic evidence of government activity over time.

A Practical Guide To Using The Freedom Of Information Act In The United Kingdom
by Dean White
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides a route to study government papers that until recently would have remained inaccessible to historians under the thirty year rule. The Act allows historians to request copies of documents produced by government bodies that have not yet been released to the public archive. This means that historians now have a way of effectively studying the very recent past. This article is a mix of a practical guide to FoI and a case study of the author's use of FoI in his own research. It gives advice on using the Act and some of the potential pitfalls.


ARCHIVES  welcomes submissions  especially those that:
    provide guidance about the use and meaning of archival resources and the linkages between them;
    provide case studies in the use of archival resources;
    provoke discussion of archival issues within the user community;
    promote scholarly analysis of the history of archives and the impact on users of record-keeping practices, past, present and future;
    report projects and discoveries;
    communicate archival trends, theories and practices to a wider audience.

Regards
Ruth Paley
Hon Editor

Contact the list owner for assistance at [log in to unmask]

For information about joining, leaving and suspending mail (eg during a holiday) see the list website at
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=archives-nra