UK Parliamentary Archives

• Held At: Parliamentary Archives: GB-061
• Catalogue Reference: HL/PO/JO/6
• Ref No: HL/PO/JO/6
• Date: 1714-1805
• Level: Series
• Extent: 60 volumes
• Creator Name: House of Lords; Journal Office; 1718-
• Administrative or Biographical History: This series contains a multi-volume publication which partly makes good the absence of the House of Lords printed sessional papers of the eighteenth-century. Unlike the House of Commons, no full contemporary set of House of Lords printed sessional papers was assembled within the House until 1837. Partial sets survived, however, within some Government Offices and libraries from the 1790s, and in more sporadic form from earlier years.
  
  The facsimiles was assembled by Oceana Publications and printed in 1978. They comprise copies of bills, reports, accounts and papers laid before the House of Lords from 1714 to 1805, which have been reproduced from collections of eighteenth century printed sessional papers held in official paper and rare book collections from across the UK and USA.
• Acquisition: A gift from the publisher in 1978, as part of the project to reproduce the printed sessional papers.
• Description: The facsimiles reproduce the known surviving copies of printed Public Bills;
  Reports of Committees; Reports of Commissioners; Humble Addresses to the Sovereign; Messages from the Sovereign to the House of Lords; Papers communicated from the House of Commons; Reports from the Trials of Peers; Reports of Impeachments; Reports of Peerage Claims; Reports of Claims to Vote for the Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland; Accounts and Papers which were laid before the House of Lords and ordered to be printed.
  
  The papers are a particularly rich source for papers on trade with the American Colonies; the disturbances in Boston in 1774; the Union of England and Scotland in 1706/7 and the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800; the trials of the Jacobite leaders in 1715 and 1745; the slave trade; commerce with India and the trial of Warren Hastings.
  
  Each volume has a table of Contents giving both the date of each document and the date it was ordered to be printed.
  
  For more on the content of the volumes see BOOK/2973; for the history of government printing before 1800, see the introduction in BOOK/1023.
• Terms:
  • Slavery,
  • Printed sessional papers,
  • Scotland,
  • Ireland,
  • Great Britain,
  • India,
  • USA,
  • Colonial countries,
  • Peerage Claims,
  • Legal procedure,
• Language: English
• System of Arrangement: Volumes are arranged in chronological order by session. Papers are arranged within each volume in the order in which they were ordered to be printed.
• Related Material: Printed Sessional Papers of the House of Lords can also be found among the House of Lords Main Papers (HL/PO/JO/10). A set of facsimile House of Commons Printed Sessional Papers from the eighteenth century is available in HC/CL/JO/8. The House of Commons Printed Sessional Papers from 1801 onwards are available in HC/CL/JO/18. See HL/PO/RO/2/519 (orderable as MIC/1717) for Record Office files containing correspondence with the Publisher about the project to microfilm Parliamentary Archives holdings and HL Sessional Papers. See BOOK/3568 for a reprint of K A Mallaber, "The House of Lords Sessional Papers" which contains a detailed description of sets of printed sessional papers held in other repositories.
• Related Record:
  • BOOK/2973,
  • MIC/1717,
  • HL/PO/JO/10,
  • BOOK/3568,
  • HC/CL/JO/18,
  • HC/CL/JO/8,
  • HL/PO/RO/2/519,
• Access Status: Open
• Finding Aids: Each volume contains a list of contents.
  An index to the series may be found in BOOK/2973: "A general index to the Sessional Papers Printed By Order of the House of Lords Or Presented by Special Command 1714 to 1805", (1986).
• Copies Exist: Digitised and available on BOPCRIS 18th Century Official Parliamentary Publications Portal. http://www.parl18c.soton.ac.uk/parl18c/digbib/biblio
• Originals Exist: In official paper and rare book collections across the UK and USA.
• Publication Notes: M F Bond, 'Guide to the Records of Parliament' (London, 1971), pp 131-132.
  K A Mallaber, "The House of Lords Sessional Papers", Journal of Librarianship, 4 (April 1972).

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