Datasets from the India Office Records and Private Papers

The datasets in this collection are based on the British Library’s India Office Records and Private Papers.

The India Office Records are the archives of the administration in London of the East India Company and the pre-1947 Government of India. The official archives of the India Office Records are complemented by deposits of private papers relating to the British experience of India.

The central focus of the India Office Records is in the territories now included in India, Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh, but the records also include source materials for neighbouring or connected areas at different times, covering not only South Asia but also Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa.

The records consist of over 14 kilometres of volumes, files and boxes of papers, together with 70,000 volumes of official publications and over 100,000 manuscripts and printed maps. A small but growing proportion of these materials have been digitised, and these digitised records are the main source of these datasets, alongside metadata taken from the Search Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.