[1] The Royal Commission has a national role in the management of the archaeological, built and maritime heritage of Wales, as an originator, curator and supplier of information for individual, corporate and governmental decision-makers, researchers and the general public.

This Act, concerned principally with prehistoric monuments rather than with later, medieval structures, encouraged owners to voluntarily transfer important sites into the safekeeping of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Works.

On 10 August 1908 a Royal Commission was authorised and appointed by King Edward VII to "make an inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions connected with or illustrative of the contemporary culture, civilisation and conditions of life of the people in Wales and Monmouthshire from the earliest times, and to specify those which seem most worthy of preservation".

For the first four decades of its existence it was based, like other Royal Commissions, in London, which allowed easy access to the British Museum, the Public Record Office and the Cymmrodorion Society, which also had its headquarters in the capital.

Owen's staff included his assistant in 1908, Edward Thomas,[13] was a fine writer and observer of the landscape but he found the Commission's work uncongenial (he regarded himself "a fish out of water") and resigned to concentrate on literature.

Palmer suffered ill health, and his appointment was an act of kindness by Edward Owen, who had earlier secured him a government pension in recognition of his historical researches.

Following the publication of the first inventories (of Montgomeryshire and Flintshire in 1911-12),the Commission's work was praised in Parliament for its quality and value for money; but the Great War naturally slowed things down.

Owen himself was in constant demand to give talks to national and local societies, and a steady stream of requests for information came in – for example on the Roman fort at Tomen-y-mur, Whitland Abbey, stone circles, place names and, especially, genealogy.

While the Commission had fulfilled its role of identifying monuments worthy of preservation, the volume on Pembrokeshire (1925) attracted criticism for its dearth of original fieldwork and its failure to keep up with advances in architectural recording and interpretation.

But Owen also saw the need to keep abreast of scholarly advances, even though the financial climate of the post-war years made it difficult to find suitably qualified staff when they would be expected to work for practically nothing.

There was a shift in focus from the use of documents and antiquarian reports to fieldwork, and an insistence on a full record of each site, building or object, with original plans and descriptions made by the Commission itself.

Categories or types of structures and objects were henceforward to be identified routinely, noting any significant variations of detail, and reference to the methods used by the English and Scottish Commissions in describing and mapping monuments would be more frequent.

On the other hand, he found the administrative burdens in a period of economic depression tiresome and his insistent attempts to squeeze resources from the "singularly ill-informed" Treasury seem to have been less effective than the efforts of Vincent Evans, who was familiar with the corridors of Whitehall.

The annual budget of the Commission was raised from £1,250 to £1,700 at the time of Hemp's appointment, but the story of the next decade is essentially one of constant struggle by both chairman and secretary to secure expert investigative staff and refine the quality of reporting, building on the principles of 1926.

Convinced that each specialist member of "a skeleton staff of three should be a first rate man", Hemp nevertheless estimated that it would take forty years to complete the county inventories to the standard now adopted.

In Hemp's mind it also depended on strengthening the complement of staff, particularly in field archaeology; but, as the government grappled with economic crises over the next few years, there was little sympathy shown at the Treasury.

One of its most striking features was its emphasis on the comparative study of sites and buildings and on the use of examples to establish types of structures so as to provide a deeper understanding of past societies.

Site descriptions were arranged by parishes, maps and plans were generously provided, the spelling of Welsh place names followed principles recommended by J. E. Lloyd rather than the antiquated practices of the Ordnance Survey, and a helpful glossary of terms was included.

The book was praised because it "not only set a fresh standard for work in Wales, but also dealt more comprehensively with the archaeology and history of the district concerned than did the publications of the fellow Commissions for England and Scotland".

His long-standing interest in history, genealogy and heraldry was applied to the wealth of medieval stone carvings and inscriptions, and his experience as an inspector for the Office of Works enabled him to report in 1941 on clearances at Conwy Castle so that additions could be made to its newly surveyed plan.

With limited resources, it set about the formidable task of rapidly compiling a national architectural archive, and in a very short space of time it amassed an impressive collection of photographs and drawings, including the Courtauld Institute's already established Conway Library.

Hogg was par excellence a field worker, who imbued two generations of investigators with the principles and practices of rigorous recording, using chain, tape and theodolite.

like the earlier stress on "humbler dwellings" in the Anglesey inventory (of which a new edition appeared in 1960), the modifications doubtless owed much to Cyril Fox, still one of the commissioners, and to the publication of his and Lord Raglan's three volumes on Monmouthshire Houses in 1951-4.

The resulting book, Houses of the Welsh Countryside, which was brought out at the end of 1975 to coincide with Architectural Heritage Year, demonstrated that the inventories could take yet another form, as national studies of a topic.

Other excavations at this time were part of the inventory programme for Glamorgan, such as at Harding's Down in Gower, where a rampart section was cut and an entrance and two hut platforms were revealed in an Iron Age hillfort.

The debate about the usefulness of "static" county inventories in a changing world where developers, planners and owners needed direct access to current, reliable information about the historic environment had gone on for decades.

The use of the same software as that for the regional sites and monuments records helped the Commission to lead a partnership that resulted in data exchange through the Extended National Database (END).

Gradually, from the 1990s onwards, there also developed a portfolio of outreach activity to complement management of the archive, supported by an education officer and organised from a refurbished library that welcomes the public.

Since its inception in 1908, the Royal Commission has established a reputation for maintaining an expertise in, and developing standards for, the survey, interpretation and reconstruction of historic buildings and archaeological sites both on land and under the sea.

Since the purchase of our first Electronic Measuring Device (EDM) in 1984, we have striven to encompass innovative digital technologies into our work in order to further and improve our understanding of the heritage of Wales.