Archive and Conservation Departments
Archive Department
The Librarian of the College of Arms, currently Peter O'Donoghue, York Herald, oversees the Archive Department. This department is responsible for the preservation, ordering, and cataloguing of the archive and library, and the accession of new acquisitions. The department's Archivist, Dr Lynsey Darby, also arranges the many loans of College manuscripts to major exhibitions in the United Kingdom and overseas.
Recent loans of this kind have been made to the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Tower of London, and the National Maritime Museum, in London, as well as the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. The department also maintains a small students' room for academic or scholarly research. To contact the Archive Department please get in touch with the Officer in Waiting.
Online exhibitions posted by Dr Darby, College of Arms Archivist, give a good overview of some of the kinds of archival material held by the College. They include:
The Battle of Waterloo and the Duke of Wellington
The Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill
The College's collection of pedigree rolls
The Order of the British Empire and the Order of the Companions of Honour
Conservation Department
The College of Arms maintains a respected Conservation Department, headed by Christopher Harvey, which is dedicated to the conservation and preservation of the College's large archive of manuscripts and its library of printed books.
Working closely with the Archive Department, and overseen by Clive Cheesman, Richmond Herald, the conservators perform all necessary repairs on volumes in the College's custody, including appropriate structural repairs to historic volumes, the binding of new records and collection care.
Much of the Department's conservation work is generously funded by donations via the College of Arms Trust.
