CABINET PAPERS
Complete classes from the CAB & PREM series in the Public Record Office
Series Three: CAB 128 & CAB 129 - Cabinet Conclusions & Cabinet Memoranda, 1945 and following

Part 4: The Macmillan/Home Governments, January 1957 - October 1964
(CAB 128/31-38 & CAB 129/85-118)

CAB 128 General Character

CAB 128 contains the minutes, or ‘Conclusions’, of the Cabinet Meetings taken down by the Secretary of the Cabinet; as such they provide an excellent record as to the main concerns and priorities of the government.

For every meeting held by the Cabinet there is a title page giving the time, place and date of the meeting, a list of who attended and a reference number.  The next page is usually an agenda listing the topics covered in the meeting, although this information is occasionally put on the title page if there are only one or two items to be covered.  The minutes themselves then follow, with each item discussed at the meeting being noted in a brief summary along with a record of any decisions reached.

Each meeting is assigned a unique reference number which can be found at the beginning of each title page.  The first two letters identify the papers as belonging to the Cabinet Conclusions series, “CC” prefixes minutes belonging to the Churchill and Macmillan governments, whilst “CM” is used for those of the Eden and Douglas-Home administrations.  The number in brackets refers to the specific year, and the following number indicates the meeting.  Thus CC (60) 20 would be the memoranda of the twentieth Meeting of the Macmillan Cabinet held in 1960.

The Detailed Listing for CAB 128 provided in this guide gives the date and reference number for each meeting, as well as an indication of the number of items discussed and the Public Record Office piece number.  The Public Record Office piece number refers to the bound volume in which the minutes are contained and is given as a heading with the range of material held within that volume; ie CAB 128/34 Cabinet Conclusions 1960 (Meetings 1-65).  This is followed by a chronological list of the memoranda themselves with their original Cabinet reference numbers, the number of items discussed, as well as the date of the meeting.

For example:  CC (60) 20:  1-6, 24 March 1960, refers to the Cabinet Minutes of the twentieth meeting in 1960, held on the 24 of March, in which items 1 to 6 were discussed.

As well as the normal Conclusions, CAB 128 also contains a number of ‘Confidential Annexes’ and ‘No Circulation Records’.  These are memoranda regarded as being particularly sensitive and not suitable for general distribution and so were kept separate from the normal run of Cabinet Conclusions (see CAB 128/3 & 4 for example).  These are listed in the Detailed Listing under there appropriate piece numbers, and include a title referring to their contents.

An annual index of the main subjects discussed in the Cabinet Conclusions is also included and can be found at the beginning of each year’s run of documents.

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