Public Record Office exhibitions - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, July, 2000 by Miriam Kram

The Public Record Office (PRO) was founded in 1838 and contains the national archives of England and Wales. The earliest document is the Domesday Book, compiled on the orders of William the Conqueror in 1086, and the collection grows daily.

The PRO occupied premises in central London until 1996, when it moved to a new and greatly enlarged headquarters in Kew. There is now a new Education and Visitor Centre for rotating exhibitions of its treasures, which started in April and will continue indefinitely. Among the objects on view at present are the Domesday Book, the third version (1225) the Magna Carta (1215), a gold seal given by Francis I of France to Henry VIII in 1527, William Shakespeare's will drawn in 16"", an extract from the logbook of the HMS Bounty in which Lieutenant William Bligh (1754 -18"") describes the famous mutiny in 1790, an SOS telegram sent by the radio operator of the RMS ""tanic in 1912, and Edward VII"" letter of abdiction of 1936. The objects on view will be changed every few months owing to their fragility. There is no catalogue.