Saga - 2018, Page 150

the authorised representatives of county magistrates vis-á-vis the district council
as well as the public. The 1880 regulations enumerated the duties of district com-
missioners as representatives of the county magistrates and clearly stated what
records were mandatory in this regard, including district records, property valu-
ation registers and auction registers. It was only in 1965 that a District Commis -
sioner Act was legislated; however, not many decades later, by December 2017,
only one such commissioner was still in office.
The oldest district records, showing tithe accounts and poor relief, date back
to 1643, even though it was not until around 140 years later, in 1786, that the keep-
ing of such records was made legally compulsory. This indicates that such records
were already considered necessary and were in fact often being kept much sooner
than is suggested by the mere eight books that are extant from before 1786. The
1809 hreppstjórainstrúx included clear provisions on archives, so that district
records and other documents have been fairly well preserved since then.
On the other hand, the district commissioners all had their own ways of tend-
ing to these records, with some of them dedicating special books to particular sub-
jects and others not. In spite of the directive on municipal affairs in 1875 and reg-
ulations on district commissioner duties in 1880, the archives of district councils
and district commissioners, even though they comprise two distinct sets of
records, have never been separated in the catalogues of the National Archives of
Iceland, nor in the country’s regional archives.
kristjana kristinsdóttir148
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