COUNCIL FOR 1881-82. JAMES CROSSLEY, F.S.A., Stocks House, Cheetham, Manchester, PRESIDENT. RICHARD COPLEY CHRISTIE, M.A., Chancellor of the Diocese of Manchester, Darley House, Matlock, VICE-PRESIDENT. JAMES CROSTON, F.S.A., Upton Hall, Prestbury, Cheshire, VICe-President. JOHN EGLINGTON BAILEY, F.S.A., Egerton Villa, Stretford, near Manchester. COLONEL JOSEPH LEMUEL CHESTER, D.C.L., LL.D., 124, Southwark Park Road, London, S.E. GEORGE E. COKAYNE, M.A., F.S.A., Lancaster Herald, College of Arms, London, E.C. HENRY HOYLE HOWORTH, F.S.A., Derby House, Eccles, near Manchester. THOMAS HUGHES, F.S.A., The Groves, Chester. JOHN PAUL RYLANDS, F.S.A., 11, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, London, W.C., HON. TREASURER. JOHN PARSONS EARWAKER, M.A., F.S.A., Pensarn, Abergele, North Wales, and 108, Portland Street, Manchester, HON. SECRETARY. Lancashire and Cheshire Records PRESERVED IN THE Public Record Office, LONDON. IN TWO PARTS. PART I. EDITED BY WALFORD D. SELBY, OF H.M. PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. PRINTED FOR THE RECORD SOCIETY. Introduction. HERE are few subjects which offer a wider scope for variety of treatment than the Public Records. So vast are the public collections, so varied is their character, that the printed volumes whose contents are exclusively derived from these sources form by themselves a respectable library, in which the bulky folio is well represented. And yet the valuable material hitherto collected, by comparison with what still remains to be gleaned, far from making it appear that the subject is threshed out, would rather indicate that we are only just beginning to arrive at a preliminary notion of the wealth of this rich mine of information. Notwithstanding the great increase in the numbers of those who are prepared to devote time and labour to the arduous task of searching among the dusty memorials of the past, and who have thereby, gradually and painfully, gained some knowledge of the boundless extent of the field of research upon which they have entered; yet even with many of these their view is but limited to one or two classes specially illustrating the object of their investigations. Not one in ten of these partially-initiated students grasps what the public collections really mean, and I may therefore be pardoned, if I venture to reproduce here, from the pages of a neglected Blue Book, an extract which well defines the general limits of the Government archives, and explains concisely the nature of the documents which come under this denomination. on the Records. The writer is the late Sir Francis Palgrave, under whose Sir F. Palgrave auspices, as Deputy Keeper, the public muniments were brought together under one roof, from the several scattered |