Manchester Ship Canal Secretary's Correspondence Files

This series of correspondence files of the Ship Canal Company number

The original order of the filing system is not reflected by this list and as such it should be regarded as an interim finding aid.

The files are a record of the MSC's relationship with its shareholders, companies on the Trafford Park Industrial Estate, rival canal companies and government departments. Indeed anything that would have had an effect on the interests of MSC Co would have had led to a file being created.

As expected, the filing system is complicated due to the size of the company and its wide range of interests.

The method used by the Secretary's Department was to file by subject. Each subject was given a box number while individual files within the box were numbered consecutively from 1 to n. For example box number 316 deals with the relationship between the Rochdale Canal and the Ship Canal. There are index books for these files. They indicate that there were, at some point, 2050 boxes, each containing between 10 and 100 files. This arrangement came into being in the early part of this century. Beforehand there seems have been a different filing system that consisted of a number followed by a dash and an alphanumeric string. File number 18-1P3 concerning the Police Pension Bill was placed in box 889 and became file number 30. It appears that the filing system was revised by gathering together files and placing them in a more efficient filing system. The indexes also indicate that some files were transferred to Chester Road and that this series of files represents the archive of the MSC Co as it was in the late 1920s/1930s when it was based in King Street, Manchester.

During the latter part of the 1920s the files were again renumbered in a way that resembles the early classification scheme. File number 314-24 (HM Customs, Bond for Dock Number 9, [B10/1/3/1070]) was reassigned as 18-32D. Therefore the reassignment of such files indicates that the matter was still of administrative use to the company at the time of this reorganisation. This reorganisation is apparent because the Record Office has the files which became part of this system and some files in the old series note that the subject matter is 'continued in File ....' Some files have been lost while others have been destroyed over the years.