The Public Records and Recent British Economic Historiography
T PEN years ago modern historians, and some economic historians, believed themselves enormously inconvenienced by the so-called "fifty-year rule" which was applied not only to State papers held at the Public Record Office but also to some private collections held by the British Museum and other repositories.' In i966, the Wilson Government, angered and embarrassed by the Eden memoirs,2 which were in part based on access to recent records, yielded to pressure from historians, archivists, and others, and accepted recommendations put forward by the Advisory Council on Public Records.3 The result was the "thirty-year rule" which was given legal effect under the Public Records Act of I967.4 As a result, State papers covering the First World War and the immediate postwar period were made available en bloc in I966, and by January I968 most records extending back to I937 were opened to public access.5 An enormous quantity of potential research material covering the First World War and nearly the whole of the interwar period suddenly became available, and was augmented annually. Most contemporary historians saw the First World War as a historical watershed from which time onwards the activity and potential role of governments in