Command Papers

Prior to 1996, it was the publisher of virtually all government material, such as command papers, legislation and official histories.

Browse through our treaty command papers by subject.

Throughout its existence, the Commission published periodical reports to the Crown in the form of command papers.

Treaties may also have been published as Command papers outside the Treaty Series and details are shown where known.

Command papers are numbered.

Browse through our Explanatory Memoranda (EMs) which support our treaty command papers.

It has not yet been possible to digitize all the existing Country, Miscellaneous and EC Series of Command papers.

These included 24 Royal Commissions; and 334 'major' departmental committees which he defined as those dealing with matters of direct concern to the government of Britain and whose reports were published as command papers.

White papers, green papers, treaties, reports from Royal Commissions and various government bodies can all be released as command papers, so-called because they are presented to Parliament formally 'By Her Majesty's Command'.

Please note that Treaty Series publications from 1997 to date are published in the Treaty Command papers and Explanatory Memoranda pages of this website, and at present cannot be seen in full-text on the database.