DOI: 10.18712/nsd-nsd2996-v1
title: The Civil Servants' Archive, Ministry employees 1814 - 1845

description: The Civil Servants' Archive: Ministry employees 1814 - 1845

Basic material: Per Maurseth, Department of History, UiO

Description of the original material.
 
Information about ministry employees in the period 1814-1845 was originally only available on handwritten sheets. The material covers all persons with ministry employment at copyist level and higher. It includes a total of 408 officials. In the case of extra printers, these are only included in the material if they are later advanced to copy or higher position. In the original material, copyists, clerks, bureau chiefs and expedition chiefs are gathered separately. Each of these job categories is again divided according to ministry affiliation so that a unit in the original material is, for example, a representative in the Ministry of Auditing.
          
The original material contains the following information about civil servants within the individual job categories:

Copyists
- name
- - date of birth or just years
- - education upon employment and departure from copyist position
- - service time in the ministry before permanent employment as a copyist -
- - period copyist (year of employment and departure)
- - next position

Clerk
- name
- - date of birth or just year
- - previous career
- - education
- - year of employment as a representative
- - next position

Bureau chiefs and expedition chiefs
- name
- - date of birth or just year
- - education
- - year of employment as agency or dispatch manager
- - previous career and other personalities
- - next position
 
- CODING
 The information for each official is coded according to a common codebook for all periods. This was done after officials who had several ministry positions, and who thus appeared in several places in the original material, were identified. In general, it is best to cover data for civil servants who advanced after copying. For civil servants who were only copyists, there is often a lack of information about education, father's profession and position before and after ministry employment. The only variable that has no coverage during this period is variable 5 'birthplace-by-herred'. Otherwise, the following variables have little coverage, best preferably among civil servants who advanced to positions higher than clerk:
- father's profession
- place of birth region
          
When it comes to information about education, there is coverage for these variables for all categories of ministry employees. It was not possible to identify the artium line for any officials.
In the case of artium years, this is coded as the year the official became a student. Officials from this period often had work in a ministry before they were given permanent employment as a copyist. Since these were not permanent positions, they are therefore not coded as departmental positions. The relevant officials have been given their own code 707 'Service in a ministry without permanent employment' under the variable 'position before ministry'. This applies to 242 officials. The alternative would be to code 999 'missing information' under this variable. Code 707 is only used for officials from this period.

Some civil servants have held positions in colleges or commissions. These are not coded as ministry positions.
           
Persons who have been copyists or proxies have been given the code 420 'lower public servant' and those who have been bureau chief or higher have been given the code 081 'higher position in the central administration' coded under 'position before ministry'.

In the original material, many different terms have been used when it comes to positions within the customs administration. These are in the joint archive gathered in two groups. These are 446 'lower officials in the customs administration' which include the positions of deputy customs officer, customs collection officer, senior customs officer, customs procurator, customs assistant and customs inspector, and 057 'senior official in the customs administration' which includes the positions customs inspector, customs treasurer, customs and customs clerk. The codes appear in the variables 'father's occupation' and 'position before / after ministry'.

With regard to ministry positions, the types of positions for this period are divided into four categories: copyist, clerk, bureau chief and chief of staff. During the period, there have been a number of reorganisations of the ministry structure.

For further documentation on this, reference is made to a book series published by Universitetsforlaget: Sentraladministrasjonens historie, and especially P. Maurseth: "Sentraladministrasjonens historie 1814-1845", Universitetsforlaget Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim 1979
         
Otherwise, reference is made to the codebook for the joint archive and the completed documented file for this period.