| Description | ' Present at the meeting: Sir Harold Hartley in the chair; Professor Andrade; Professor Kurti; Professor Paton; Sir Robert Somerville; Mr Ellis; Miss Joan Pye, Dr R E W Maddison, Mr Baillie and Mr Storey in attendance
1. Apologies for absence from Dame Veronical Wedgwood and Dr Martin
2. Minutes of last meeting agreed and signed
3. Matters arising; the Chairman asked if the Notices describing the "Guide" proposed at the last meeting, had been prepared. Mr Ellis reported that he had written one for 'Archives'; Dr Maddison explained that he had deferred submitting one to the 'Journal of the Society of Archivists' in view of the amount of information which he still had in hand to process.
4. Dr Maddison reported on his progress in compiling the "Guide". He showed the Committee the cards which he had prepared to date, mainly on the basis of lists suppllied by the National Register of Archives, and explained that he still had no information at all for many of the scientists and technologists on the Committee's approved list. The Committee requested him to submit to them a list of the remaining blanks in a year's time, in the hope that suggestions as to the whereabouts of their papers might be forthcoming. The Committee agreed with Dr Maddison that in the case of uncatalogued accumulations it would be possible to give only an outline indication of their nature and contents. Dr Maddison proposed to include an index to the "Guide", to enable correspondents to be traced in the various accumulations.
Dr Maddison reported that he had a response from only about half a dozen private owners, but that one of these had been the Ferranti Archives. He had recently had contact with Dr Charles Weiner of the Center for the History and Philosophy of Physics in the United States.
5. Report by Miss Joan Pye, Archivist of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, on the Pilot Study on the archives of Sir John Gaddum, Sir Franis Simon and Professor L RWager, which had been circulated to the Committee, was then considered. Miss Pye added the missing figures to paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Report (viz 25, 43 and 55 respectively) and gave the figure of £5000 as a general estimate of the cost of a year's work on the lines of the Pilot Scheme, including the costs of accommodatioin and fixtures as well as of staff and materials. She produced three file boxes, one from each of the archives arranged, together with summary lists. These were examined by the Committee and Miss Pye explained her work on the papers and the principles on which she had proceeded.
The Chairman raised the questions of the possible classified nature of some of the papers of modern scientists. Miss Pye reported on her findings in this respect in the three completed archives and Mr Ellis explained the possibiltiy of the declassification of certain materials.
Professor Kurti proposed and the Committee agreed that the three processed collections should, with the consent of their owners, be kept at the Royal Society. He explained the arrangements for an exhibition of and a talk on the work by Miss Pye, which was to take place on the afternoon of Wednesday 4 June at the Royal Society, under the auspices of the Standing Joint Committee. It was agreed that the Presidents of the principal institutions should be invited to this meeting (which was to be by invitation only) and the hope expressed in the invitation that the pilot scheme would suggest to other institutions the way in which the papers of their deceased Fellows could be cared for.
Professor Kurti further proposed that a summary of Miss Pyes's report be forwarded to the Council of the Royal Society, with the recommendation that the Royal Society consider undertaking the preservtion and arrangement of its deceased Fellows' papers on the basis of the pilot scheme, with detailed listing to be carried out subsequently. This was agreed.
The Chairman raised the question of the papers of non-Fellows, including technologies and medical men. It was agreed that an approach should be made to the Wellcome Foundation in connection with the papers of the latter.
Miss Pye sought the Committee's advice on the question of the retention or disposal of duplicate typescript drafts or proofs of papers which were subsequently publilshed and which were unannotated (except for typographical correction). It was agreed that such material should not be archived.
The Chairman expressed the Committee's thanks to Miss Pye for her work which was greatly appreciated, and to the Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, for allowing her to undertake the work for the Committee.
6. Export of MSS; Mr Ellis gave a resume of recent attempts to exend the control of the export of MSS and to allow MSS to be accepted by the state in lieu of death duties. It was felt that there was nothing the Committee could do in these matters at the present juncture. '
At end; summary of the history of the setting up on the Standing Joint Committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Commission of Historical Manuscripts and its terms of reference, its current projects and Miss Pye's report, and the Committee's recommendation that the Council of the Royal Society make provision for the systematic preservation of the personal papers of the Society's Fellows, on the basis of the Pilot Scheme. Also recommendation that papers which have been arrnged and listed in the course fo the Pilot Scheme by placed int he Library of the Royal Society. |