Appendix: Miscellaneous, 1711

Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 25, 1711. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1952.

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'Appendix: Miscellaneous, 1711', in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 25, 1711, (London, 1952) pp. 617. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-treasury-books/vol25/p617 [accessed 24 April 2024]

Miscellaneous, 1711

ALPHABETICAL REGISTER OF PAPERS READ AND MINUTED AT THE TREASURY BOARD OR BY LORD TREASURER OXFORD.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The method and purpose of the Record known as the Treasury Alphabetical Register of Papers has been explained in previous volumes of the present Calendar. See in particular Calendar of Treasury Books, Vol. XVII, pp. 104, 436; Vol. XIX, p. 79; Vol. XX, p. 101; Vol. XXIV, p. 563.
It is fairly certain that the recommencement of the Record in August 1710 after a four years' break was due to the putting the Treasury into Commission in that month consequent upon the fall of Treasurer Godolphin.
The re-instituted Register which began in August 1710 ceases in June 1711, and as the Treasury Commission which commenced on the 10th Aug. 1710 was itself superseded on the 30th May 1711 by the appointment of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, as Lord Treasurer, it is natural to infer that the method of the Alphabetical Registering of Papers was again suspended by the new Lord Treasurer's succession.
As a record the Alphabetical Register does not reappear at all; for when on the 14th Oct. 1713 the registering of papers was resumed the Register is a chronological record, not an alphabetical record.
We can only surmise as to the change of office routine between these two dates, June 1711 and Oct. 1713. But it seems fairly plain that Treasurer Oxford was minded to supersede William Lowndes as his Secretary until he found him too strong and too indispensable; and the discontinuance of the alphabetical system of registration may have been an initial step in the attempt to throw over an extremely able but rather domineering Secretary.
But there is of course always the possibility that the record was not discontinued at all, but that a fresh volume was started in June 1711 to mark the commencement of Oxford's Lord Treasurership and that such volume has since disappeared.
The official reference to this record is T4/18.
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