History
PRONI was established by the Public Records Act (Northern Ireland), 1923. The new body opened in March 1924 on the fourth floor of a former linen warehouse in central Belfast (at Murray Street). The immediate challenge was to identify and preserve surrogates of records lost in Dublin during the Four Courts fire on June 1922. The first Deputy Keeper, Dr David A. Chart was able to replace many of these records by approaching solicitors, business people, politicians, churches and the landed aristocracy.
The success of Chart’s acquisition policy meant that PRONI needed more storage space. In April 1933, the office moved to a new central Belfast location, the first floor of the new Royal Courts of Justice in Chichester Street. However, it was not until 1965, that the Ministry of Finance would approve an actual new building. This new building, opened in 1972, at Balmoral Avenue was the first new record office to be built in the UK since the Public Record Office in London was erected in 1838.
Between 1924 and 1982 PRONI was part of the Ministry (later Department) of Finance. The functions were then transferred to the Department of the Environment (DOE), and in 1995, PRONI became an executive agency within the DOE. With the restoration of devolved government in 1999, PRONI became an agency within the new Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL). The department brought together for the first time overall responsibility for libraries, museums and archives. As part of the implementation of the Review of Public Administration, PRONI ceased to be an agency in 2006 and became a division within the core department.
Read more about this topic: Public Record Office Of Northern Ireland
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