The origins of the Banco de España Historical Archive go back to 1782, the founding year of the Banco Nacional de San Carlos (1782-1829). The Archive is mentioned as early as the bank’s first Shareholders’ Meeting, held on 20 December 1782, when it was placed under the secretary’s charge.
At the first Board of Directors’ meeting on 9 January 1783, the bank set out which documents needed to be preserved: royal orders, resolutions of the General Shareholders’ Meetings and minutes of the Board of Directors, among others. Later, the 1829 Internal Governance Regulations of the Banco de San Fernando set out the obligation to transfer the records of concluded matters to the archive and established the handover procedure, which required signed delivery and classification by originating office.
Despite these early provisions, it was not until the 1980s that systematic processes were introduced for identifying, classifying and transferring material from office archives to the central archive.
Opening up to historical research
The decisive impetus for developing the archive as a primary research source came in 1944, when the US hispanist Earl J. Hamilton requested access to the documents of the Banco de San Carlos for a historical study. To support his work, archivists and librarians Antonio Mut Calafell and Miguel Bordonau produced the first systematic inventories of the archive’s collections.
From that point on, academic interest in the Banco de España’s holdings grew steadily, particularly among specialists in economic history.
Creation of the Historical Archive
The Historical Archive was formally established in 1979 when the Executive Council (now the Executive Commission) ruled that documents more than 40 years old would be open for public consultation. From then on, professional archivists and records specialists were recruited to join the Bank as members of staff.
In 1982 the Historical Archive’s reading room was opened, coinciding with the First Congress on Economic Archives at Private Entities. A few years later, in 1990, the Archive also assumed the management and public dissemination of the Banco de España’s Numismatic Service, which manages banknotes and coins.
Inventories, digitisation and conservation
Since its establishment, the Historical Archive has produced complete inventories of all sections available for public consultation. In 2010 the Archive began systematically digitising documents and books, starting with the most important: minutes of the Governing Council, shareholders’ meeting reports, architectural plans, securities certificates, bills of exchange, shares of the Banco de San Carlos and the banknote collection.
The Archive also has a preventive conservation and restoration plan, which allows it to identify risks, prioritise conservation work and ensure the long-term preservation of the institution’s documentary heritage.