Stolen Archives

Re-evaluating the British ‘migrated’ archives

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Stacks at the UK National Archives. Image used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Stolen Archives?

Recent revelations about the ‘migrated’ archives, documents that British authorities covertly removed from colonised territories around the time of transfers of power, have been a crucial development in studying the end of empire.

This project aims to produce the first major book to address both the considerable popular and scholarly interest in the ‘migrated’ archives. It aims to facilitate a new generation of more inclusive and diverse research about these archives, both within and beyond the academy.

Prisoners’ labour being used to remove a filing cabinet in from colonial offices in Maseru, Lesotho, in 1965. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Kit Bird.
Prisoners’ labour being used to remove a filing cabinet in from colonial offices in Maseru, Lesotho, in 1965. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Kit Bird.