African manuscripts and archives

Looseleaf, illuminated Qur’an, together with its original leather bag from northern Nigeria/southern Niger/Chad

Manuscripts from West Africa were normally loose-leaf and kept in leather bags. The style of this illuminated Qu'ran, from the late 18th/early 19th century, is typical of the region of southern Niger, northern Nigeria and Chad (shelfmark: OR 16,751).

The British Library's manuscript collections include material from across the African continent. We also have important records and private papers connected with Africa.

About the collection

Our manuscripts and archives from and about Africa include:

manuscripts from Ethiopia and North Africa
small collections of manuscripts from West and East Africa, mainly in Arabic and Swahili
private papers of many prominent British administrators, politicians and military men connected with Africa
digital images of archives held elsewhere, which have been preserved by the Endangered Archives Programme.

We also have the records of the East India Company and the India Office, covering 1600-1947. These contain much material relevant to Africa, reflecting for example the East India Company’s interests in many parts of the African coast. The India Office material includes coverage of 19th-century military campaigns in East Africa and 20th-century Indian emigration to East and southern Africa.

What is available online?

You can search our catalogue online using Explore Archives and Manuscripts.

The Endangered Archives Programme provides a lot of digitised African material, with a wide variety of archival and manuscript collections freely available for research.

Digitised Manuscripts and the Online Gallery give access to a selection of African material, and some manuscripts are also showcased in our West Africa online exhibition.

What is available in our Reading Rooms?

Manuscripts from Africa, records of the East India Company and India Office, and India Office Private Papers are available in the Asian and African Studies Reading Room. Other manuscripts related to Africa are available in the Manuscripts Reading Room.

We have a wide variety of e-resources which are available in our Reading Rooms (for licensing reasons, these are not usually available off-site). E-resources with significant African content include:

Africa: Confidential Print, 1834-1966 (British government correspondence)
Apartheid South Africa 1948-80 (British government files)
British Online Archives (also available remotely with a British Library Reader Pass)
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive.

What is available in other organisations?

UK Government records on Africa are held at The National Archives, and their catalogue also allows you to locate archives in other institutions.

The Commonwealth and African Collections of the Bodleian Library has very extensive collections of the papers of individuals and organisations relating to Africa.

There is a specialist Sudan Archive at the University of Durham.

Online research tools include the Mundus database, for missionary records, and Archives Hub.

Further information

A very good (though not comprehensive) guide is:

Pearson, J.D., A guide to manuscripts and documents in the British Isles relating to Africa, vol. 1 (London: Mansell, 1993–4).

For East India Company and India Office records on Africa, see:

Geber, Jill, The East India Company and southern Africa: a guide to the archives of the East India Company and the Board of Control, 1600-1858 (PhD, University of London, 1998)
Makepeace, Margaret, ed., Trade on the Guinea Coast, 1657–1666: the correspondence of the English East India Company (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1991)
Tuson, Penelope, Zanzibar: sources in the India Office Records ([London, 198-?])
Wallace, Marion, ‘Accidental archives: tracing Africa in the India Office Private Papers in the British Library’, African research and documentation 98 (2005).