Everything comes round again, including regional government.  I 
wonder if colleagues have any ideas for this researcher to pursue or 
if they have seen regional records in local record offices.  

CW
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	"Nina Fishman" <[log in to unmask]>
Organization:   	University of Westminster
To:             	[log in to unmask]
Date sent:      	Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:09:38 +0000
Subject:        	Regional Committees 1940-1944
Priority:       	normal

I have been trying to find out about the Regional Committees 
established by the Government in 1940 to make plans in case of 
invasion.  I am interested because the subject of the biography I 
am writing, Arthur Horner, says in his autobiography that he was 
appointed to the Regional Committee in South Wales (in his 
capacity as President of the South Wales Miners Federation).   

I have been to the PRO and looked at the Department of Home 
Security (under the Home Office rubric).  The class of records there 
HO207 do deal with Regional Committees.  However, they are 
overwhelmingly concerned with London.  There are no minutes or 
even correspondence between Whitehall and the Regional 
Committees.  As I told you on the phone, there was a lovely file 
with a decision about the order of precedence for regional 
commissioners in the event of a royal visit.  The Whitehall view was 
that they should come after the Lord Lieutenant, Recorder and 
Mayors. The point was made that Regional Commissioners were 
like Prefects in France and very unusual for GB.   

When I was at the Durham County Record Office looking at the 
Sam Watson papers, I enquired about the Regional Committee for 
the Northeast, and the archivist there had no knowledge of it.  The 
problem is, of course, that the regions included more than one 
county. In the case of South Wales, Region 8, there was 
Glamorgan, Cardiff, and Monmouth.   

       I would be very interested to know if these records were 
collected by County Record Offices after the war.  And, if they were
not, then who did collect them?  The PRO evidently did not!

        Welsh academic colleagues have no knowledge of the 
regional committees in Wales being collected at the National 
Library of Wales but I have not myself checked this yet.

Mrs Christine Woodland
Archivist, Modern Records Centre
University Library
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL
tel. 44 1203 524495
fax. 44 1203 572988
email [log in to unmask]


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