CIPR: Where is the history?

Before I begin this, I'm a student and am actively involved (when I can) with the CIPR North East. I also study a CIPR approved BA Hons Public Relations course and am about to (hopefully!) take the final step and enter into the working world of PR officially.

But something struck me yesterday when I read over @DavidGHPhillips blog post, on challenges for CIPR post Farrington http://is.gd/bcfTm I know almost nothing about the CIPR, I know what it is, I know what it is there for, but I know pretty much zilch about it's history. Indeed many of the points made in the post mentioned I wasn't aware of.

Using my 'expert' student skills I went in search of answers. The CIPR home page 'about' section told me what I knew. Wikipedia (although some consider not a credible source), gave me nothing apart from 1 Membership, 2 Sectoral groups, 3 Governance, 4 External links, 5 References.

Google offered me some form of hope in finding out more. Using the search term 'CIPR history' I found this, an article on Jacquie L'Etang's book, 'Public relations in Britain: a history of professional practice in the 20th Century'. I think this will be extremely interesting.

I don't have lots of experience and my PR career will hopefully begin when I graduate in Summer, so I may not be best placed to pass my judgement. But if the CIPR is to be understood by newcomers like myself and for PR to be seen as a profession, shouldn't it have an element of tradition and recorded history?

I'm particularly interested in regime changes in the CIPR leadership and general feeling about the stages the CIPR has been through since it was founded as the IPR. The blogpost above gave me some good insight into an opinion of the last 'regime'.

If anyone knows of any articles or books that could give me further information then please let me know.