Directives relating to English customs duties

Manuscript volume containing transcripts of directives issued by the Treasury Board and the Board of Customs, 1671-1678, including warrants petitions and legal documents relating to the customs. The documents are signed by statesmen including Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury; Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh; Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds; Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington; Sir John Coventry; and Charles Bertie.

The term 'customs' applied to customary payments or dues of any kind, regal, episcopal or ecclesiastical until it became restricted to duties payable to the King upon export or import of certain articles of commerce. By ordinance of 21 January 1643, the regulation of the collection of customs was entrusted to a parliamentary committee whose members were appointed commissioners and collectors of customs forming a Board of Customs. This and succeeding committees appointed by Parliament until 1660 and thereafter by the Crown, functioned until 1662, when those who had been serving as commissioners became lessees of a new form of customs. This continued until 1671 when negotiations for a new farm broke down and a Board of Customs for England and Wales was created by Letter Patent.

Single item.

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Part of the Goldsmith's Library of Economic Literature, initially collected by Herbert Somerton Foxwell and presented by the Goldsmith's Company to the University of London in 1903.

Collection level description.

Manuscript folio. Bound in vellum.

Compiled by Sarah Smith as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.

University of London manuscripts relating to customs and excise include MS 39, 40, 41, 44, 90, 134, 140, 202, 203, and 204.