RECORDS OF THE CONSERVATORS OF THE RIVER MEDWAY

MPA

1727-1969

fonds

The Conservators of the River Medway were established by an Act of Parliament as a separate corporate body in 1881. The conservators were empowered to ensure the "preservation and improvement of the River Medway", and more specifically to "dredge, cleanse, scour, buoy and light the river and to preserve the navigation of the same, and for such purposes to levy and collect tolls, rates, and dues, to borrow money and to exercise the powers, authorities and jurisdiction" conferred by the Act. They had jurisdiction from an imaginary line drawn from Garrison Point, Sheerness (Isle of Sheppey), on the south bank of the river and Dolly Bank, Isle of Grain, on the north bank of the river in the east, to an imaginary line drawn at right angles from the stone at Hawkwood in Burham on the south bank of the river to a point on the north bank of the river in Halling in the west. The Conservancy Board offices were located in Rochester High Street, and still stand now as an annexe of the Guildhall Museum, having been acquired by Rochester upon Medway City Council in the 1990s. In 1969, the Conservators' functions were taken over by the Medway Port Authority, depositors of this collection, who were themselves later taken over by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Co., operators of the Port of Liverpool.

Some records in the collection predate 1881. These were inherited from solicitors involved in the incorporation process.

Not to be confused with the records of the separate Medway Navigation Company (collection S/MN). Prior to 1881 the functions of the Conservators were carried out by Rochester City Council (collection RCA).