A Historical and Archival Guide to Székesfehérvár (Székesfehérvár, 2003)

THE HISTORY OF SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR TOWN ARCHIVES

chairman of the general assembly, and deputised for the suspended officials. He could put pressure on the assignment of the applicants for positions. He appointed the former archivist among the staff of civil servants. At the re-election of 18 April 1872 Lord Lieutenant József Zuber appointed former councillor János Niczky an archivist "for a lifetime" and an honorary councillor. However, he did not hold his office for long; he died in the following year.

68 The archivist post was not popular in the 1870s, as several times it was occupied only for shorter periods. Most of those who held the position accepted it while waiting for a better opportunity. On 12 February 1872 archivist János Tuboly, resigned his office after he was promoted court bailiff. The general assembly trusted the council with filling the vacancy.

69 The problem was not solved however and the vacancy was filled only at the re-election. The new regulations were a little more detailed than the former ones. The municipal organisation of 1885 ranked the archivist among the town officials as before. It defined his duties as the following: "The archivist is obliged to preserve and look after the documents and other valuables placed in the town-archives"'.

70 As town official, the archivist was member of the municipal committee. The file department of the town - the archivist was also charged with its management - got its own, detailed regulations in the statute. The file department was regarded as a subsidiary office, which worked separately from the registrar's office and the copying and forwarding office. The file department of the town was charged with the handling and safeguarding of files, documents and every other valuables kept here. The registrar's duty was to separate the documents that were received for safe keeping, and to catalogue them according to name and subject, that is to arrange the dossiers. He was also charged with joining dossiers, that is if the file had some antecedents it was joined to the preliminary documents. The dossiers were then put in packets in order to handle them more easily, they were labelled with the number of the file department office, the year and the first and last file department number of the dossiers. The members of the council were allowed to request the documents for official use at any occasion, a certificate was issued about it,