An army of British bureaucrats, ably assisted by locally born civil servants and other employees helped keep the wheels of Empire – and later, Commonwealth – turning.

The so-called ‘Blue Books’ originated as the result of a request from the Commons Select Committee of Finance in 1817 for returns of offices in the Colonies. A book asking for the return of statistical information was first sent to the governor of each territory in 1822, and similar returns were to be made in future as soon as possible after the close of every year.

The National Archives holds runs of Blue Books from some territories, but the Historic Records’ collection of Blue Books and civil service records brings together collections from many different sources.

To date we have transcribed over 1.8m records from Ceylon (1840–1940), over 1.4m records documenting Westerners in China (1840–1941), and over 100,000 records from the continent of Africa (1822–1848), a project we are just getting started with. The records from China focus mostly on Hong Kong, Peking and Shanghai, but there are also records covering Macau.

Typical information to be found in these books includes an individual’s name, title, occupation and employer. In some cases, addresses are also to be found. These records are important because they place an individual at a certain time and location and could explain, in some cases, why individuals are missing from British census returns.

For more information about the Historic Records Civil Service Overseas collection, and to explore licensing options, please contact us.