| Description | Assembly files are the background papers to the Assembly minute books. They survive in profusion (it has been estimated that they contain 15,000 to 17,000 documents) and add considerably to the information contained in the minute books. They consist of attendance lists, the names of those present being ticked; rough notes kept by the clerk of the business performed (from which the formal minutes would be compiled); voting lists showing the complicated procedure by which officials were elected; petitions which are inscribed with the Assembly's decision and votes; and copy minutes inscribed with the reports of committees of inquiry. From 1625 to 1657, files consist of annual bundles (gaps before 1600). After that date, one file could consist of the documents for as many as nine years. Assembly files were dismantled and repaired in the 1930s. At the same time, a volume of copies of Assembly orders and other documents, possibly compiled in the early sixteenth century, was rebound. This volume has been given the reference ZAF/1. |