Resources & Links

1914-1918 Reference

Remembering

Interpretations

About the site

The National Archives (formerly called the Public Record Office) is the archive of the United Kingdom and it preserves the records of a nation from the Domesday Book to the latest Government papers released to the public.

A Reader's Ticket can be issued at the reception desk for first time visitors. (First time visitors should take a form of identity e.g. driving licence or passport to apply for the Reader's Ticket.)

For full details of research facilities, online exhibitions, the online catalogue (PROCAT) and online document ordering, newsletter, conferences, and opening hours visit the website at The National Archives.

Resource material in the collection relating to the First World War includes:

• War Diaries
• Orders of Battle
• War Maps
• GHQ Papers
• Medical Records
• Draft of Official Histories
• Embarkation Dates
• Medal Rolls
• Service Records (phased release of records not destroyed by fire in 1940)
• Soldiers Died in the Great War.

There is also a well-stocked bookshop. A catalogue is available by post and a full list of titles available from the shop can be seen online at The National Archives bookshop. Two useful First World War publications produced by The National Archives are:

• A document pack in the Battlefront series about The Battle of the Somme, 1916 (£12.99)
• The First World War, The Essential Guide to Sources in The National Archives, by Ian F W Beckett (£19.99). This guide lists and explains the material held by The National Archives in thematically arranged sections.

See also our Publications page for titles of three Readers' Guides on researching Army and Air Force records at The National Archives.

The National Archives, Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU, England

Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2003. Updated 2005. All rights reserved