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

Sir Anthony Eden (Catalogue reference INF 3/9)

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 National Archives has held a microfilm copy of the original records for some time. This has been made available to visiting researchers, alongside the Foreign Office departmental records which the collection complements. You can now search and download digitised images of this microfilm.

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.

However, the format of the microfilm copy held by The National Archives made it difficult to splice film of the released extracts into the existing spools. The best way to make the extracts available was by creating a digital version into which scanned copies of the released extracts could be easily inserted.

The originals of the released extracts are being reinstated in the original record to be made available at the University of Birmingham.

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)