The Day Books are a chronological record of daily debit and credit transactions, varying from sales of pictures, drawings and prints, to the delivery of works and framing services. Each entry records:
- Date of transaction record
- Name and occasionally the address of individual/description with whom Agnew's carries out the transaction. Please note that the name found in the Stock Book purchase column is not always the same in the day book, if an intermediary handled the sale. Read carefully!
- Transaction description
- Any associated stock number(s), provenance or framing diagram
- W.O. note (refering to record in Waiting Order Books at NGA27/4)
- Sheet numbers: references to receipts, invoices or correspondence (not retained by Agnew's within the archive)
- Ledger prefix and/or page number in the left hand margin
In addition, the number written in the left hand-side margin is the page number the transaction appears on in the ledgers. A prefix to the ledger page numbers is sometimes given (for example, E139, F334, P27) indicating which sub-series of ledgers the page number can be found within. Where a prefix is not given, the associated ledger is more difficult to determine, but general rules can be followed. For example, if the transaction is recorded in the London Day Books, a good place to start would be to look in the London Ledgers. For more information about ledgers and their prefixes refer to NGA27/14.
Day Books are arranged into the following sub-series (for more information on any of these sub-series please refer to the associated reference):
NGA27/13/1: X Day Books, 1873-1980
NGA27/13/2: Manchester Day Books, 1898-1932
NGA27/13/3: London Day Books, 1866-1956
NGA27/13/4: Other London Day Books, 1865-1875
NGA27/13/5: Liverpool Day Books, 1893-1909
NGA27/13/6: Paris Day Book, 1907-1930, carried forward into the New York Day Book
NGA27/13/7: Berlin Day Book, 1908-1913
NGA27/13/8: New York Day Book, 1931, brought forward from the Paris Day Book
NGA27/13/9: Private Day Books, 1953-1971
NGA27/13/10: Morland Agnew Day Books, 1902-1930
NGA27/13/11: Miscellaneous Day Books, 1889-1982
For more general information about the Agnew's archive as a whole, refer to the description at NGA27.