, Keeper of the Archives from 1826 to 1857. The position of Keeper of the Archives at the
University of Oxford dates from 1634. The university's records pre-date this, and it claims to have one of the longest continuous
record-keeping traditions in Britain. Records were initially kept in the
Priory of St Frideswide (the site of the present-day
Christ Church), moving to the
University Church of St Mary the Virgin in the 14th century, where they were housed with money and other valuables. The archives were left in considerable disarray by a burglary in 1544, and remained in chaos until
Brian Twyne attended to them in the 17th century. The 1634 statutes stated that "the careless keeping of the archives of our University, and the gross ignorance of our privileges" had led to "many mischiefs and losses", particularly in the "almost daily contests with the citizens of Oxford" described by it as "ancient rivals" who "catch at every occasion of impugning our privileges". , who held the position from 1987 to 1995 (pictured in 2010). The scope of the archives is defined by a university regulation. It includes
charters, title deeds, copies of university statutes and regulations, records maintained by the
university's Registrar and minutes of meetings, as well as any other official material from the university or its departments that is not in current use and whose preservation is "desirable" in the opinion of the Committee for the Archives. The earliest document held, dating from 1214, is a decision of a
Papal legate in a dispute between the town of
Oxford and the university. The majority of the archives date from the 19th and 20th centuries, and are mainly in paper format, with only a few photographs and no sound or video recordings. The archives became part of the Bodleian Library in August 2010, with the Keeper of the Archives reporting to the library's Keeper of Special Collections and Associate Director. Bailey was the first full-time Keeper of the Archives: he was previously the Archivist under his predecessor, David Vaisey, but a decision was taken to combine the two posts in 2000. The Archives became part of the Bodleian's Archives & Modern Manuscripts division in April 2020 and the current Keeper (
Faye McLeod, appointed July 2020) now reports to the library’s Head of Archives & Modern Manuscripts. The Keeper works with an Assistant Keeper (a role split between two people each working part-time) and an Archives Assistant. Some of the holders of the position have been appointed to a Fellowship of one of the colleges; unlike some of the professorships at Oxford, it is not linked to a particular college. ==List of Keepers of the Archives==