The Tower Record Office

The Tower Record Office was where government documents were housed until the middle of the 19th century

Introduction

As a secure site it made perfect sense for the most significant records of the emerging royal bureaucracy to be housed at the Tower of London.

• 13th century - The Tower started to house government documents. Records of the Exchequer and the Chancery were located in St John's Chapel and elsewhere within the White Tower

• Late 14th century onwards - The Wakefield Tower was being used to store documents and came to be called the Record Tower

• Late 16th century onwards - Keepers of the Records complained about the appalling state that the documents were kept in

• 1838 - The Public Record Office was created under its first Keeper, Francis Palgrave

• 1840 - The Tower records were handed over to the Public Record Office

• 1858 - The Tower Record Office closed when a purpose built repository opened in Chancery Lane, London

• 1997 - The repository at Chancery Lane closed. The records were transferred to Kew to form part of the National Archives

Important personalities

The White Tower William Prynne

As a young man during the 1630s, he had been accused of sedition twice and suffered the penalty of imprisonment in the Tower as well as having both ears cut off, his nose slit and SL (for seditious libeller) burnt into his cheeks.

However, his support for the monarchy subsequently won him the appointment as Keeper of the Record Office in the Tower in 1660.

Did you know?

Winners & Losers: the English Civil War

In the summer of 1647 Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax returned to London. King Charles I was in Parliamentary hands at Hampton Court and the First English Civil War was at an end.

Fairfax rode on to the Tower intending to inspect the stores of weapons and ammunition. While he was there he also visited the Record Office in the Wakefield Tower.

Alive to the possibility of a public relations coup against King Charles, Fairfax ordered the Magna Carta to be brought out to him. Upon seeing the document he removed his hat in respect and observed ‘this is that…which we have fought for, and by God’s help we must maintain’.