London Metropolitan Archives

The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is the principal local government archive repository for the Greater London area, including the City of London: it is the largest county record office in the United Kingdom. It was established under its present name in 1997, having previously been known as the Greater London Record Office. It is administered and financed by the City of London Corporation.

The archive is based at 40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London. It attracts over 30,000 visitors a year and deals with a similar number of written enquiries. LMA's extensive holdings amount to over 72 miles of records of local, regional and national importance. With the earliest record dating from 1067, the archive charts the development of the capital into a modern-day major world city.

London Metropolitan Archives in its current form is essentially an amalgamation of four separate bodies. The first three were the London County Record Office, the London County Council Members Library and the Middlesex County Record Office, which merged in 1965 to form the Greater London Record Office and History Library (GLRO). The GLRO became London Metropolitan Archives in 1997, and took over the former Corporation of London Record Office (CLRO) in 2005.

Until 1889, London was still the area within the walled city; to the south of the river was Surrey and Kent and to the north of the city's limits was Middlesex. These areas, however, had become densely populated and, given the sphere of influence of the city, traditional boundaries were no longer practical. The County of London was created and controlled by the newly formed London County Council, which took over many of the duties of its predecessor the Metropolitan Board of Works. It was the records of these bodies and similar groups such as the London School Board and Metropolitan Asylums Board that would form the nucleus of the London County Record offices holdings, which were based at County Hall on the south bank of the River Thames.

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