A significant proportion of this class of documents consists of formal letterbooks kept by the dockyard Commissioners or officers recording letters sent to and received from the Navy Board, and warrant books detailing the orders given by the Board. There are ten such volumes for Sheerness, 1757 to 1822. Two letterbooks are unusual; one of them contains letters from a yard commissioner who visited the Victualling yards at Portsmouth, Chatham and Sheerness between 1702 and 1703, while the other contains letters specifically relating to sailmaking, 1807 to 1814. There are also account books kept by the Clerks of the Cheque at Gibraltar, 1757 to 1760, and Portsmouth, 1795 to 1800; a 'Timber Expense book' kept by Charles Scammell, a quarterman at Deptford dockyard, 1780 to 1801; a journal kept by the Master Attendant at Portsmouth, 1696 to 1698, is unusual owing to its more personal nature and early date; a private account book of Richard Prowse, Master Attendant at Woolwich Dockyard between 1785 and 1804, contains information on private payments from contractors. From the seventeenth century comes a survey of the fortifications along the Thames, Medway and southern and Cornish coasts in 1623 and an account of the expenses incurred in building the 'citadel' at Plymouth Hoe, ca.1670. There are two bound volumes of plans of the dockyards in England and the colonies; the earlier was made in 1774 and includes forty maps and plans including soundings; the other, made in 1831, contains thirty-seven plans. The most recent item is a cashbook containing copies of receipts issued at Haulbowline Dockyard, 1920 and 1921.

Administrative / biographical background
Royal Navy: Administration - volumes relating to local administration