The Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical Collection
The historical library collection of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was transferred to King’s on permanent loan in 2007. Arguably the most important library collection to be acquired by the College in its history, it comprises over 60,000 volumes of books, pamphlets, reports, typescripts and manuscripts. This web page provides a summary description of the collection and also includes information on current access arrangements and on other relevant collections held elsewhere.
Explore 500 years of world history, an introductory leaflet about the collection is available as a PDF here.
Important note
At present some of the FCO Historical Collection is housed in remote storage and the bulk of the collection is uncatalogued. Prospective users of the collection should consult the guidance on Current access arrangements for further information.
The FCO Historical Collection principally represents the library collection of the FCO, not the documents and records generated by its staff. The records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and of its various predecessors are held at the National Archives, as is the bulk of the photographic collection. Please see Other related collections elsewhere for further information.
About the FCO Historical Collection
The FCO Historical Collection embodies in its contents not only the comprehensive scope, both chronological and geographical, of the Foreign – and later the Colonial and Dominions – Offices’ interests but the central role which their libraries, particularly that of the Foreign Office, played in the formulation of government policy. As Lord Granville, Foreign Secretary to Gladstone’s government, observed, the Foreign Office Library was the ‘pivot on which the whole machinery of the Office turned’.
The collections which now go to form the FCO Historical Collection have a long and complex history. The Foreign Office Library was formally founded in 1801, with the appointment of Richard Ancell as its first librarian, but its functions and collections go back much earlier. The Foreign Office itself was formed in 1782 out of the old Northern and Southern Departments (the division was between the two areas of Europe – broadly speaking, the Protestant north and the Catholic south – with which the Departments dealt), which themselves dated back to the reign of Charles I. The Commonwealth Office, meanwhile, was formed only in 1966 from the former Commonwealth Relations Office (itself founded in 1947 from the combined Dominions Office and India Office) and Colonial Office. Material from the Colonial Office, itself formally established as a separate government department in 1854, and from the Dominions Office, which branched off from it in 1925, form a major component of the FCO Historical Collection. Prior to the formation of the Colonial Office in 1854 responsibility for colonial matters had lain with the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (from 1801), with the Council for Trade and Plantations (from 1768) and with the Council of Foreign Plantations (from 1660). Finally, in 1968, the combined FCO was formed; it is the material acquired prior to this merger that has come to King’s.
Lewis Hertslet, Librarian from 1810 to 1857, observed that ‘there is no divisible period in our foreign affairs, nor any limit to our researches’, and the comprehensive nature of the collection is one of its most immediately striking features. All countries and peoples of the world are covered extensively and all post-medieval periods of history. History, government, geography, natural resources, trade, anthropology – all are dealt with in depth. Naturally, there is a particular emphasis on those parts of the world where Britain had strategic interests – Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, North America in the eighteenth century, for example – but there is no part of the world that is not covered. Material from the former Colonial Office Library provides superb coverage of the former colonies and dominions, but there is also much on those of the other major powers; there is material on the Belgian Congo, on German imperial ambitions in Africa and on France’s Indian Ocean possessions, to give just three examples.
For much of its history, the Foreign Office Library fulfilled functions over and above those normally assigned to a library. The Librarian not only acquired, documented and managed collections of books and papers; he maintained the correspondence files of the Foreign Office, had custody of all treaties with foreign powers, undertook research on all aspects of international affairs at the request of ministers and others, provided guidance as to precedent in affairs of state, was the author of numerous reports and memoranda on international affairs (producing up to 300 a year by the late nineteenth century) and was, in short, as Lewis Hertslet was described by one Foreign Secretary, ‘a Walking State Paper’, who had a considerable influence on British foreign policy. This helps to explain another notable feature of the collection, the large amount of manuscript annotation. The entire collection - and this applies to Colonial Office, as well as to Foreign Office material - was very much a working tool of government.
Both the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office were major producers of documents in their own right, and the presence of so many internal publications is another defining feature of the collection. These include rulebooks for colonial officials, confidential reports of civil unrest in the colonies, transcripts of trials, peace treaties, reports on trade figures, mineral resources or educational policy in the colonies and dominions and so on. Many of these items are extremely rare, with copies held in maybe one or two other libraries. The same can be said for the extensive holdings of bound volumes of printed pamphlets on particular themes; for topics such as the rise of the anti-slavery movement and the history of colonial settlement and emigration the FCO Historical Collection forms a unique resource for the historian, bringing together thousands of pamphlets that would otherwise be difficult to obtain, many of them bearing evidence, through manuscript annotation, of the use to which they were put by government. Of equal interest to the historian are the large volumes of press cuttings, arranged by subject and copiously indexed, covering the First World War, the Russian Revolution and Civil War and other events of the early twentieth century, and the equally large volumes in which Colonial Office librarians amassed material connected with the British Empire exhibition of 1924 and with the coronation of George VI in 1937 – circulars and confidential despatches, official programmes and souvenir booklets and photographs sent by commissioners from around the globe.
Current access arrangements
At present some of the FCO Historical Collection is housed in remote storage. The remainder is now housed within the Foyle Special Collections Library and its storage areas. However, as the collection is in the process of being catalogued, it is not always possible for us to identify or provide access to material contained within it.
Prospective users of the FCO Historical Collection are advised to contact Katie Sambrook , Special Collections Librarian, in the first instance.
Catalogues to the collection
We are cataloguing material from the FCO Historical Collection. Records for all items that have been catalogued to date can be found on the main King’s College London library catalogue.
The items of the collection which have so far been catalogued were mainly printed before 1701 and were part of the original Foreign Office Library collection. They mirror the great variety of subjects, languages and genres contained in the later items in the collection and also reflect the broad-mindedness of its early compilers. Anything that could give the reader an insight into a foreign country, its political system, its inhabitants and their customs was collected, be it in English, French, Italian, Spanish or Latin. Sometimes the same item was collected in several languages, like Adam Brand’s A journal of an embassy from Their Majesties John and Peter Alexowits, emperors of Muscovy, &c. into China (1698), of which there is also another copy in French (1699).
A wide range of subjects are covered. Law is particularly well represented with titles such as the Law and Acts of Scotland (1683 and 1707), the Charter of London granted by King Charles II (1680) and a book containing the Treaties of Nijmegen (1697). There are also a significant number of books covering history and politics, including John Milton’s History of Britain (1695), Pierre Bontier’s Histoire de la premiere descouverte et conqueste des Canaries (1630), Gasparo Contarini’s La republica e i magistrati di Vinegia (1564) and Cardinal Mazarin’s Letters in French (1693).
The collection’s geographical scope is as vast. Books covering European countries were collected side by side with items on such far away places as Macaçar, a kingdom which was situated in the southern part of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Travel descriptions and memoirs, e.g. Barnardin Martin’s Voyages faits en divers temps en Espagne, en Portugal, en Allemagne, en France et ailleurs (1700), Robert Knox’s Relation ou voyage de l'isle de Ceylan, dans les Indes orientales (1693) or Madame d’ Aulnoy’s Memoirs of the court of Spain (1692) were collected alongside tracts on courtesy and diplomacy like John Finnett’s book on the reception and the treatment of foreign ambassadors in England (1656) or Le parfait courtisan by Baldassare Castiglione (1585). All in all, the items thus reflect the varied functions of the Foreign Office.
Various printed catalogues to the libraries of the Foreign and Colonial Offices were produced during the course of their history and may be consulted in the Foyle Special Collections Library. However, these catalogues all pre-date the substantial reduction in the size of the libraries’ collections that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. They are therefore not an accurate reflection of the current contents of the FCO Historical Collection.
Great Britain. Colonial Office. Library. Catalogue of the Colonial Office Library, London. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1964 [Special Collections Ref. FOL. Z921.L624 CAT]
Great Britain. Foreign Office. Library. Catalogue of the Foreign Office Library, 1926-1968. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1972 [Special Collections Ref. FOL. Z921.F65 CAT]
Great Britain. Foreign Office. Library. Catalogue of printed books in the library of the Foreign Office. London: H.M.S.O., 1926 [Special Collections Ref. Z921.F65 CAT]
Great Britain. Foreign Office. Library. A short title catalogue of books printed before 1701 in the Foreign Office Library, compiled by Colin L. Robertson. London: H.M.S.O., 1966 [Special Collections Ref. Z921.F65 ROB]
Other related collections elsewhere
The
National Archives is the UK government’s official archive. Holdings include the records and photographs of:
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the Colonial Office (covering the period 1570-1990)
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the Dominions Office (covering the period 1843-1990)
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the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (covering the period 1918-2005)
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the Foreign Office (covering the period 1567-2004)
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the War Office (covering the period 1568-2007)
Readers wishing to consult material at the National Archives should be aware that government records remain closed for thirty years after their creation.
The National Archives have digitised some of the FCO photographic collection on Africa and these are available to view at Africa through a lens.
The National Archives also houses a substantial reference library, containing over 65,000 volumes relating to local, national and international history. Please see its library catalogue for further details.
The British Library holds the records of the India Office. These include the records of:
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the East India Company (covering the period 1600-1858)
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the Board of Control or Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India (covering the period 1784-1858)
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the India Office (covering the period 1858-1947)
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the Burma Office (covering the period 1937-1948)
The School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London holds some material relating to China which was transferred from the FCO Library.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London holds important collections of published and archival material on Commonwealth countries and their history.
The Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, holds the records of the British Diplomatic Oral History Programme, comprising interviews with former diplomats and other officials on aspects of their work.
Cambridge University Library holds the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, founded in 1868 as the Colonial Society, containing over 300,000 printed items, 600 archival collections and over 100,000 photographs of the former British colonies. The RCS Official Publications Project aims to catalogue official publications from this collection that were published within the colonies themselves.
The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford has created a searchable database of the Foreign Office Confidential Print series.
Electronic resources
The website of the FCO contains:
Other useful electronic resources:
Centre of African Studies (University of Cambridge - portal for African Studies)
Early Canadiana Online
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
Southern Cross Resource Finder (SCRF) (Australian and New Zealand collections in Europe).