Official: Admiralty, 1939 - 1940

Series

Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 19

Scope and Contents

The Admiralty papers contain correspondence, minutes, and War Cabinet papers created or accumulated as a result of WSC's activities as First Lord of the Admiralty, a position held from 3 September 1939 to 10 May 1940 when he became Prime Minister.The material contains correspondence with senior Admiralty figures, politicians including Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, public and foreign figures including Edward, Duke of Windsor [earlier Edward, Prince of Wales and Edward VIII], and WSC's Personal Assistant Professor F A Lindemann [later 1st Lord Cherwell] on subjects including naval strategy and engagements, armament production, merchant shipping, and more general political considerations.The file of Secret and Personal correspondence [CHAR 19/2A-C] is an original file recovered from the Admiralty Private Office in 1946. It contains some material not confined to the departmental limits of the Admiralty.

Dates

Creation: 1939 - 1940

Conditions Governing Access

From the Fonds:

The Churchill Papers are made available to researchers using Churchill Archives Centre and worldwide in digital format. The digital edition of the Churchill Papers is published by Bloomsbury Academic and is available online to subscribing institutions at churchillarchive.com. The Churchill archive is freely available in our reading rooms and onsite at Churchill College (via the Churchill College wireless network). Researchers can download images of documents directly from churchillarchive.com and so are encouraged to consider bringing a laptop or other device for this purpose. For conservation reasons, the fragile originals are no longer issued to researchers.

This digital edition is open to researchers unless otherwise marked in the catalogue. Some material has been closed by the Cabinet Office or by Churchill Archives Centre in accordance with data protection legislation.