Well said Philip. This ridiculous change of policy by the Met Office
and the aside that the records prior to 1914 are somehow valueless is
an insult to decades of painstaking work in researching, carefully
standardising and publishing records from the 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries undertaken by Gordon Manley, Hubert Lamb, Emanuel LeRoy
Ladurie and many others.

Anyone who has access to the relevant volumes of British Rainfall,
Monthly Weather Report and Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine
will know that the collection, publication and quality of
climatological data a century ago is an order of magnitude better than
today's, despite the advantages of today's technology making it easier
than ever to publish.

Grrr!

Stephen Burt
Stratfield Mortimer, Berkshire