IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): LCC/PC/WM
Held at: London Metropolitan Archives
Title: PUBLIC CONTROL DEPARTMENT: WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND GAS TESTING
Date(s): 1888-1972
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 1.66 linear metres
Name of creator(s): LCC | London County Council x London County Council
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
The term 'public control', as used in the Council's organisation, embraced various services of a regulative character, mostly exercised by some form of licensing control. Largely unobtrusive in their operation, and producing no spectacular effects, they were all carried out in the public interest and, in some respects, for the protection of the public or certain sections of it.
Their administration was conditioned by trends in the legislative provisions under which they were operated, by shifts and changes in social usages, and by the development of the Council's policies towards the matters to which they related.
The Council was the weights and measures authority for the County of London (excluding the City) and employed twenty-three duly qualified inspectors and five authorised coal officers. Four area offices were maintained at which a large quantity of very accurate equipment was kept, including standard measures, fine balances, public weighbridges, a weighbridge testing vehicle, and machines for testing and stamping glass measures.
Increases in the sale of prepacked goods had an effect on legislation. Statutory regulations in 1957 made it an offence to sell any prepackaged food, with certain exceptions, unless the wrapper was legibly marked with a true statement of the contents. During the year 1962-1963 the Council's inspectors examined 537,000 articles of food at 14,000 premises.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Records of the London County Council Public Control Department relating to weights and measures and gas testing, 1888-1972, including records of Daily Gas Testing; Gas Testing Weekly Returns; reports and conferences relating to gas supply; quarterly reports of the Chief gas examiner; quarterly reports by the LCC chemist and reports regarding the Weights and Measures Acts.
Samples of records including journal of weights, measures, weighing and measuring instruments submitted for verification and fees received by the inspector of weights and measures; journal of fines; certificates of measures verified; certificates of weighing on a public weighbridge; certificates for weighing mechanically propelled vehicles; receipts of glassware for testing; glass-testing book; public notice concerning Publicans' Glass Measures; public notice concerning Sale of Bread; standards and testing of gasholders testing sand-blast machines; papers relating to the re-verification of local standards, scale-beams, and so on with the Board of Trade.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
LCC/PC/WM/01: Registers; LCC/PC/WM/02: Reports; LCC/PC/WM/03: Samples of certificates and notices; LCC/PC/WM/04: Standards.
Conditions governing access:
Available for general access.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright: City of London
Physical characteristics:
Fit
Finding aids:
Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Acquired with the records of its parent body, the London County Council.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
Publication note:
For further information on the history of the LCC please see Achievement: A Short History of the London County Council by W Eric Jackson (1965), LMA Library reference 18.0 1965, The London County Council 1938, LMA Library reference 18.7 SER 4, and The Youngest County: A description of London as a county and its public services, 1951, LMA Library reference 18.0 1951.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Date(s) of descriptions: April to June 2009