Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council: financial and accounting records
Reference Number
BC/5
Level of Description
Sub-fonds
Title
Bath City Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council: financial and accounting records
Date
1570s-c.2000
Extent
Extent: c. 120 linear metres
Description
The records in this sub-fonds record the financial transactions of the Council over five centuries.
The early records were created by the Chamberlain, who was the chief financial officer of the Corporation; he received monies due from rents, rates and property renewals, and handled loans, bequests, interest charges, bills, salaries, and freedom fees (payments made by individuals to buy the privileged status of freeman of the city). Until 1794, the Chamberlain was elected from among the Councillors, and the post was unpaid. After this date, a salaried chamberlain was appointed, from outside the Council; the post, like that of the clerk at this time, was part-time. The term 'Treasurer' was used instead of Chamberlain from 1835, when the Municipal Corporations Act required councils to appoint a salaried treasurer. The responsibilities of the treasurer increased substantially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as the functions of the Council grew.
The records include: -Accounting records (account rolls, records of receipts and payments, cash books, journals and ledgers) of the Chamberlains and Treasurers, from 1570s to the late twentieth century -rating records from 1851 -valuation records from about 1930 -filing of the Treasurers' department, twentieth century -investments and mortgages (both mortgages loaned and mortgages taken out by the Council), nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Note that annual Abstracts of Accounts and monthly or quarterly lists of payments made, which were presented by the Treasurer to the Council and/or Committees, are catalogued with the Council and Committee minutes in sub-fonds BC/2. Similarly, records of salaries paid, although technically treasurers' records, are catalogued with personnel records in sub-fonds BC/19. Financial records of the Bath Education Authority form part of sub-fonds BC/15.
The records are not yet catalogued in detail. Please contact the Record Office for more information.
