The UK Government’s Official
History Programme
History of the Programme
Work on official histories began under the auspices of the Committee of
Imperial Defence (CID), forerunner of the Cabinet
Office. The CID’s
Historical Branch was set up in 1908 with responsibility for ‘Compiling the
naval and military history of the nation’. At the outbreak of war in 1939,
when the CID
lapsed, the Historical Branch became the responsibility of the Cabinet
Office, where it has remained ever since. After 1945 the main task was the
preparation and publication of the history of the Second World War -
military, intelligence and civil (the War as fought at home - civil
defence, food, war finance, etc.)
As the end of the project approached, consideration was given to the future
shape of official histories and, in 1966, the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson
announced to Parliament that the range of official history was to be
extended to include selected periods or episodes of peacetime history.
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Purpose of the Programme
The official history series is intended to provide authoritative histories
in their own right; a reliable secondary source for historians until all
the records are available in The National Archives; and a ‘fund of
experience’ for future government use. The series includes topics of
general interest which fall within the purview of more than one Department.
Histories on topics relating to one government Department are produced from
time to time; such departmental histories are not formally part of the
official history programme.
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How topics are chosen and commissioned
The topics for inclusion in the official history programme are selected
initially by the Official Cabinet Committee on Official Histories (OH) on which all major government
departments are represented. The topics are then considered by a Group of
Privy Counsellors, one from each major political party, currently
comprising Lord Healey, Lord Howe, and Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank. The
Privy Counsellors’ approval provides the necessary authority for the
historian to have access to records of all previous administrations.
Historians of eminence in their field are identified, after consultation
with appropriate government departments, and are appointed by the Prime
Minister. They are then given access to all relevant material in government
archives, whether publicly available or not. The official historian writes
the history from his/her own perspective on the basis of the full
information. Any security issues connected with the historians’ use of
still sensitive material are then addressed before the manuscript goes to
the publisher.
The usual method of funding official histories is for the chosen author to
be paid a fee by the Cabinet Office. He/she receives no royalties on the
sale of the work, which remains Crown Copyright. Until privatisation of the
HMSO in
1997, official histories (other than SOE histories) were published by
HMSO. But
after HMSO's privatisation,
the Cabinet Office joined with the FCO’s Information Management
Group, and the three service historical branches of the Ministry of Defence
to form in 2000, the Whitehall History Publishing consortium known as
WHP who
jointly contracted all their works to be produced by Frank Cass now Taylor
and Francis Publishers. Under the terms of the WHP contract the
Cabinet Office receives a proportion of the royalties from the sales of
official histories to offset against the cost of producing them. The main
call on departments’ resources is the assistance required in identifying
and retrieving files and documents for the research, and the scrutiny of
the manuscript, when it is sent to appropriate Whitehall departments for
examination and comment, whether factual or concerning passages still
deemed to retain sensitivity. The Head of the Cabinet Office Histories,
Openness and Records Unit mediates between the department and the author to
reach a mutually satisfactorily solution. This can usually be achieved, but
the ultimate sanction is the power of the Cabinet Office to refuse
publication of any text not considered satisfactory, for whatever reason.
The Cabinet Office reserves the right to permit, or to decline, to publish
and this proviso is reflected in official historians’ contracts.
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Histories in the course of preparation
The Falklands Campaign
(Professor Lawrence Freedman)
The Channel Tunnel
(Dr Terence R. Gourvish)
Development of North Sea Oil and Gas
(Professor Alex Kemp)
UK Accession to the European
Communities (Volumes 2 and 3)
(Professor Alan S. Milward)
The Biography of Desmond Morton
(Gill Bennett)
The Civil Service since Fulton
(Professor Rodney Lowe)
Privatisation
(Professor David Parker)
D-Notice System
(Rear Admiral Nick Wilkinson)
External Economic Policy since the War (vol 2)
(Professor L S Pressnell)
From Defence by Committee to Defence by Ministry
The Development of the Central Organisation of Defence in the United
Kingdom
1902-1964
(Professor Donald Cameron Watt).
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Histories published in the Post-war series to date
UK Accession to the European
Communities (volume 1)
(Professor Alan S Milward, 2002)
Health Services since the War (volume 2)
(Dr Charles Webster, 1996)
British Part in the Korean War (volume 2)
(General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, 1995)
British Part in the Korean War (volume 1)
(General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, 1990)
Health Services since the War (volume 1)
(Dr Charles Webster, 1988)
External Economic Policy since the War (2 volumes)
(Professor L S Pressnell, volume 1 1987)
Colonial Development (5 volumes)
(D J Morgan, 1980)
Environmental Planning (4 volumes)
(Professor J B Cullingworth & G F Cherry, 1975-81)
Nationalisation of British Industry (1 volume)
(Sir Norman Chester, 1975)
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SOE Histories
In a separate closely related series are the official histories of the
activities of the wartime Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE was the organisation set up in
Churchill’s phrase, to ‘set Europe ablaze’ SOE agents were sent into Occupied
Europe to carry out acts of sabotage and subversion. The SOE histories were initiated
following pressure from the Special Forces Club and others that official
histories should be commissioned to take advantage of the personal
recollections of the surviving participants and the location of SOE records within the
FCO, until their
release began under the Open Government initiative in the early 1990s.
Financially the SOE
histories are managed differently from other official histories. The
authors are appointed as official historians to provide the necessary
privileged access to closed records, and are required to submit their
manuscripts in the usual way for clearance within Whitehall (see paragraph
3) However, they receive no fee but are instead free to negotiate with a
publisher of their choice, from whom they receive royalties.
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SOE titles in
preparation
SOE in Italy -
Christopher Woods
SOE in Greece -
Professor Richard Clogg
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SOE titles
published to date
Secret Flotillas - (revised edition) Volume 1 - Clandestine Sea Operations
to Brittany 1940-44
(Brooks Richards, 2004)
Secret Flotillas - (revised edition) Volume 2 - Clandestine Sea Operations
in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Adriatic 1940-44
(Brooks Richards, 2004)
SOE in France
(revised edition)
(Professor M. R. D. Foot, 2004)
SOE in the Low
Countries
(Professor M. R. D. Foot, 2000/2001)
Secret Flotillas - Clandestine sea lines to France and French North Africa
1940-44
(Brooks Richards, 1996)
SOE in Scandinavia
(Dr Charles Cruickshank, 1986)
SOE in the Far East
(Dr Charles Cruickshank, 1983)
SOE in France
(Professor M. R. D. Foot, 1968)
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Histories in prospect
For financial and administrative reasons the Histories, Openness and
Records Unit of the Cabinet Office aims to have three or four major
histories in the pipeline at any one time. As the histories currently in
preparation near publication, further titles are commissioned. The Cabinet
Official Committee on Official histories last met in November 2000 to draw
up a list of subjects, which were subsequently approved by the Prime
Minister and endorsed by the Group of Privy Counsellors. The Prime Minister
announced the commissioning of the first of the new series in a parliamentary answer on 3 July 2002 and at the
same time listed the topics which form the rest of the list, to be
commissioned as existing histories near completion. Details of the
histories announced by the Prime Minister are given below, with a brief
note on their intended coverage.
Privatisation - a definitive account of the transfer of ownership and
operation of industries, utilities and other businesses and services from
the public to the private sector during 1970-97. The history will in a
sense complement the history of the Nationalisation of British Industry
written by Sir Norman Chester and published in 1975.
D-Notice System - this history will chart the origins and working of the
Defence (D) Notice system from attempts before WW1 to seek the co-operation of the press to
restrict publication of subjects on national security grounds, leading to
the establishment of the Committee which having adapted to changing
circumstances over the intervening years, still operates today.
Criminal Justice System - this history will examine the significant changes
in the Criminal Justice System over the past 40 years. It will chart the
position before, during and after our attempts to manage the system as a
whole.
Devolution - documenting progress towards devolved government in Scotland
and Wales (not Northern Ireland), setting the constitutional changes in
their wider political, intellectual and parliamentary context. The history
will focus on a comparison between the devolution proposals of the Wilson
and Callaghan governments of the 1970s and the developments leading to the
Blair government’s establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh
Assembly.
Chevaline - the UK defence
programme to enhance the Polaris submarine launched ballistic missile
system to counter the Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences.
Policy towards the former Yugoslavia - documenting the complex course of
events following the secession of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia from
Yugoslavia, the history will encompass the UK role in the international community’s
peace-keeping efforts, and cover the Dayton accords, the Kosovo crisis,
concluding with the progress towards implementing Dayton and the resolution
of remaining FRY issues.
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Published official histories
Official histories which have been published since 2002 can be ordered from
Taylor and Francis’ distributors who can be contacted at:
Thomson Publishing Services
Cheriton House
Northway
Andover
SP10 5BE
Phone: 01264 342 926
Email:
book.orders@tandf.co.uk
Cabinet Office
Histories, Openness and Records Unit
February 2005
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