Sir Charles Hillary Jenkinson – the founding father of the British archival science

Abstract

Studying the achievements of archival science in different countries, we come across personalities it is impossible to imagine that field without. Sir Charles Hilary Jenkinson, the world-famous archivist and paleographer of the early 20th century, is that very person in the British archival science. The article presents Sir H. Jenkinson’s activities at the Public Record Office, where he started working as an ordinary clerk, then was in charge of various departments, introducing a lot of changes and innovations, and retired as Deputy Keeper. Particular attention is paid to the enormous contribution he made to the development of the British archival science, creating fundamental works, lecturing at universities, inspiring the development of many scientific societies. His most famous work is undoubtedly “A Manual of Archive Administration”, first published in 1922. However, both before and after the appearance of that kind of a seminal “guidebook” in Anglo-Saxon archival theory, H. Jenkinson produced a number of equally important works, which are also mentioned in the article. In addition, the article considers the attitude of the Russian archival community, particularly that of I.I. Lyubimenko, a historianarchivist, to Jenkinson’s major work, and also provides a small comparison of two great archivists – Sir Charles Hillary Jenkinson and Theodore Roosevelt Schellenberg.