EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH:

Archives of the Royal Commonwealth Society from Cambridge University Library

Part 1: The Colour Question in Imperial Policy, c1830-1939

Part 2: Imperial and Commonwealth Conferences, 1887-1955

Publisher's Note

The archives of the Royal Commonwealth Society are unique. They constitute the most extensive record in existence of the British Empire and its evolution into the modern Commonwealth of Nations. Comprising half a million items, including more than 350,000 books, over 70,000 photographs, many valuable manuscripts and original documents, rare first editions, diaries, letters, notebooks, scrapbooks, maps, periodicals, pamphlets and memorabilia, the collection is by far the most important single research resource for students of Empire and Commonwealth. It makes possible the examination of the great themes of discovery and exploration, the migration of peoples, cultural interchange, race and colour, colonial administration, decolonisation, political development and the economies of empire.

Professor John M Mackenzie, Department of History, University of Lancaster writing in Cambridge University Library: The Great Collections edited by Peter Fox (CUP 1998) notes:

"The Royal Commonwealth Society truly takes the world as its oyster. The startling scale and chronological complexity of the British Empire from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries ensures that such a great collection as this offers a major route into global studies. But perhaps the most remarkable attribute of the RCS collection is that the librarians created a unique chronological subject index from journal articles in a vast range of periodicals. This index is a treasure trove in itself, even before the materials which it accesses are summoned up. Moreover, nothing was beneath contempt: all forms of ‘puffs’, propaganda and travel accounts were grist to the mill of the librarians and the readers they served. This was far-sighted: historians, formerly so obsessed with official documents, have recently become much more interested in such sources, replete as they are with colourful insights into their age. "

We start with material on the Colour Question in Imperial Policy, c1830-1939, covering:

• relations with native races
• issues of race and empire
• initial cultural contacts
• race and cultural interchange

This is assembled in Part 1 of this new microfilm project and we include material from colonists, from the native viewpoint and from the perspective of the policy makers.

• How did the Colour Question impact Imperial Policy?
• How successfully, if at all, did colonial administrators react to the pressures for change?

The material poses lots of questions for researchers.

The material in Part 1 is based on a detailed examination of the RCS card catalogue and draws principally upon documents under the heading Commonwealth: Colour questions and relations with native races for the period c1830-1939. The following is an indication of some of the items included:

• F D Lugard on The Colour Problem, April 1921.
• Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Colour against white world-supremacy (New York, 1920) in which he fears "the vision of a pan-coloured alliance for the universal overthrow of the white hegemony at a single stroke, a nightmare of race-war beside which the late struggle in Europe would seem the veriest child’s play."
• Coloured Races in the Empire, a lecture delivered by Annie Besant, April 1913.
• Colour Prejudice in the British Colonies, an article in the Indian Review, December 1913, by Ratanshaw Koyaji of the Nyasaland Protectorate.
• The Governance of Empire, by P A Silburn, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Natal, 1910.
• Reports of the Select Committee on Aborigines, 1836-1837.
• Travels in Africa in 1845 and 1846: comprising a journey from Whydah, through the kingdom of Dahomey, to Adofoodia in the interior, 2 volumes, by J Duncan, 1847.
• Africa’s challenge, by J H Stockil, Durban 1938.
• ‘Colour’ in the British West Indies, by G Beresford in the Empire Review, 1929.
• The Races of Man: A Philosophical Enquiry into the influence of Race over the Destinies of Nations,
  by Robert Knox, second edition, 1862.
• Greater Britain: A record of travel in English speaking countries during 1866 and 1867,
  by Charles Dilke, 2 volumes, 1868.
• Tropical colonization: an introduction to the study of the subject, by A Ireland, published in New York, 1899.
• The Native problem in South Africa, by A Davis, with A review of the problem in West and West Central Africa, by W R Stewart, Chapman & Hall 1903.

"In Africa we must continue to guide and control", Lugard argues. Other commentators are not quite so sure. Bannister writes on Humane policy in the colonies and India; or the free, just and integral unions of coloured people with our people, (Brighton, 1870). Members of the British Association are recorded discussing the contact of European and native civilizations at a meeting in Ipswich in 1895; L E Neame warns of the Asiatic danger in the colonies (1907); but Henson, Keith, Bruce and Spiller talk of ethics, moral responsibility, self-government and inter-racial amity.

In terms of imperial policy there is much evidence of misrule and misunderstanding. Here are the seeds of Apartheid, the Mau Mau rebellion, and other bitter conflicts of the twentieth century.

Part 2 covers Imperial and Commonwealth Conferences, 1887-1955. It brings together three types of material from the RCS Collection:

• Minutes of Proceedings, Reports and Papers of Conference
• Articles and periodical literature concerning the conferences
• Rare printed works providing a critical history of the Imperial and Commonwealth Conferences
  

By way of further background information we also include rare printed materials on:

• Suggestions for Colonial Reform
• the campaign for closer union and Imperial Federation
• views of colonists on these colonial questions

The rare printed works and periodicals include:

• McCallum, J A, An Australian looks at the Empire, 1938
• Haskell, A L, The Dominions - partnership or rift? The danger stated, and the answer, 1943
• Historic meeting of Commonwealth statesmen in London, June 1953, immediately following the coronation of Elizabeth II
• J S Little, A World empire: being an essay upon Imperial Federation, 1879
• Lord Thring, Suggestions for Colonial reform, 1865
• G Drage, The Colonial Conference: a plea for one practical result, April 1907
• Viscount Milner, Some reflections on the coming Conference, April 1907
• Richard Jebb, The Imperial Conference from within, 1912
• G Drage, The Imperial organisation of the trade, 1911
• H D Hall, The British Commonwealth of nations: a study of its past and future development, 1920
• F A McKenzie, The Imperial Conference: its problems and personalities, 1921
• D A E Veal, The Empire in consultation: from self-government to nationhood, 1921

These documents provide scholars and researchers with a central core of evidence on relations with native races, attitudes towards race and colour, cultural contacts, the response of indigenous populations, the process of imperial decision-making, policy discussions and colonial reforms at the highest level.

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