| Description | Hard-back volumes with file copies of précis papers prepared at the CMS UK office for meetings of the East Asia (Group 1) Committee, alongside related committee resolutions, recommendations and remarks. The précis up to December 1901 are printed, and thereafter mimeographed.
The précis books are a valuable primary source for anyone interested in correspondence between the CMS missions to Canada and the CMS UK office. They provide a working summary of all of the incoming correspondence from the British Columbia (North Pacific) Mission and now serve as a useful contemporary index to the papers held in the archive as the Original papers [CMS/B/OMS/G1 C2 O]. Furthermore, they include some details, such as recommendations arising from discussion at committee meetings, which cannot be found elsewhere in the records. |
| Administrative History | When incoming papers from the missions [held in the archive as 'Original papers'] arrived at the CMS UK office, London, they were numbered in the chronological order in which they arrived. A new running number was started for each year from 1 January onwards.
A précis was then prepared for each meeting of the Group Committee which administered the work of that mission, with entries for each item that had been received since the last meeting. The précis gave the number which had been allocated to the item, the date, writer, date received, a summary of contents, proposals for committee action to be taken and/or secretary's remarks. The précis were used as agenda papers for meetings of the Committee.
A file copy of each précis was pasted in to a 'Précis book'. The précis were entered on the left-hand page. On the facing, right-hand page, the clerk of the relevant Group Committee (for example, the East Asia (Group1) Committee, entered committee action and notes of secretarial action, for example, letters written with the initials of the secretary. |