Private Office Papers of Sir Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1936-1938 and 1940-1945

The records of Foreign Secretaries' private offices are a major contemporary source for the study of British political history and diplomacy in the modern era. Since 1958 the records of ministers have clearly been recognised as public records. Where selected for preservation, the records have usually been cared for by The National Archives. However the distribution of earlier collections has been more varied and the original copies of the Avon papers are in the custody of the University of Birmingham. The extracts had been retained by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) since the time of transfer. These retentions mainly relate to references to the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which remained sensitive at the time of transfer. The FCO began re-examining these retentions under the Open Government Initiative and has been able to release many into the public domain.

The papers

The records are of both a personal and a political nature and originally they were organised by country, geographical region or subject.

They consist of correspondence, reports, memoranda and other papers documenting the work of the Foreign Secretary, and are a particularly rich source for the study of diplomacy during the Second World War. The records include much material additional to or expanding on the papers contained in the main run of Foreign Office political records for this period where the paperwork passing through the private office was not passed on into the departmental registry system.

Submission for the appointment of Ribbentrop as German Ambassador (Catalogue reference FO 954/10a)		Telegram: Tin Tut's innocence established (Catalogue reference FO 954/1b)

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