Confidential Print series

Adam Matthew Digital Collections has released four collections in the Confidential Print series. These collections are full-text searchable databases of British Government documents generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices based in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America from 1820 to 1970. All items marked “Confidential Print” were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to heads of British missions abroad. These materials range from letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports, and texts of treaties.

Boston University historian Betty S. Anderson noted (in an essay posted with the Middle East collection): “A particularly effective way to engage with the Confidential Print series . . . is to take advantage of the long span of time covered in these volumes. In few other places can a researcher so clearly analyze the shift from a Britain as the primary foreign actor in most of these countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to one superseded by the United States, the Soviet Union, and independent local politicians after World War II.”

University Publications of America (UPA) have reproduced selected confidential print documents in various series of microfilm and print volumes under the title British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print. The Adam Matthew collections, however, are purported by the publisher and bibliographers to be much more comprehensive, and include scanning from the original print documents in The National Archives.

Researchers should keep in mind that confidential print documents were originally selected from the broader body of diplomatic correspondence, based on their designated importance. Other contextual material can be referenced. The guide from The National Archives indicates, “Confidential prints can . . . be a convenient way to review selected correspondence quickly without searching the original correspondence series.”[1]

Africa, 1834-1966

This collection covers all of the countries and territories of Africa, independent and ruled by colonial powers, with the exception of Egypt (which is included under Middle East). Materials include: reports, dispatches, correspondence, political summaries, economic analyses, and maps.

Major periods covered by the papers include the following classes from The National Archives, Kew, in their entirety:

• CO 879/1-190 (Africa, 1848-1961)
• CO 886/1-11 (Dominions, 1907-1925)
• DO 116/1-8 (Dominions (South African), 1913-1944)
• FO 341/1-3 (Africa 1884-1900)
• FO 401/1-48 (Abyssinia, 1846-1956)
• FO 403/1-482 (Africa, 1834-1957)
• FO 413/1-99 (Morocco and North-West Africa, 1839-1957)
• FO 458/1-157 (West Africa, 1882-1950)
• FO 468/1-4 (British Commonwealth, 1945-1949)
• FO 485/1-3 (Liberia, 1947-1949)
• FO 540/1-6 (Libya, 1951-1956)

The resource will also include selected files from:

• CO 885/1-140 (War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office Confidential Print, 1839-1966)
• DO 114/1-120 (Dominions Office Confidential Print, 1924-1951)
• DO 201/1-53 (Commonwealth Relations Office Confidential Print, 1946-1966)
• WO 287/1-287 (War Office Confidential Print, 1904-1949)

Middle East, 1839-1969

This collection covers the countries of the Arabian peninsula, the Levant, Iraq, Turkey, and many of the former Ottoman lands in Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and Sudan. Materials include: reports, dispatches, correspondence, descriptions of leading personalities, political summaries, and economic analyses.

Major periods covered by the papers include the following classes from The National Archives, Kew, in their entirety:

• CO 935/1-25 Middle East General, 1920-1956
• FO 402/1-33 Afghanistan, 1922-1957
• FO 406/1-84 Eastern Affairs (Middle East), 1812-1946
• FO 407/1-237 Egypt/Sudan, 1839-1958
• FO 416/1-113 Persia, 1899-1957
• FO 423/1-70 Suez Canal, 1859-1947
• FO 424/1-297 Turkey, 1841-1957
• FO 437/1-9 Jordan, 1949-1957
• FO 464/1-12 Arabia, 1947-1957
• FO 481/1-17 Iraq, 1947-1969
• FO 484/1-11 Lebanon, 1947-1957
• FO 487/1-11 Middle East General, 1947-1957
• FO 492/1-11 Israel/Palestine, 1947-1957
• FO 501/1-10 Syria, 1947-1956

Latin America, 1833-1969

This collection covers all countries of mainland South and Central America, plus Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Materials include: profiles of leading political, military, diplomatic, and economic figures, incoming and outgoing diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, statistical charts and tables, descriptions of leading personalities, accounts of tours, minutes of meetings and conferences, texts of treaties, political summaries, economic analyses, annual reports and calendars of events by country, and maps.

Major periods covered by the papers include the following classes from The National Archives, Kew, in their entirety:

• FO 497/1-10 (South America, 1947-1956)
• FO 467/1-5 (Brazil, 1947-1951)
• FO 486/1-10 (Mexico, 1947-1956)
• FO 533/1-11 (Central America and Caribbean, 1947-1957)
• FO 420/1-294 (Central and South America, 1833-1941)
• FO 495/1-10 (River Plate countries (Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), 1947-1956)

The resource will also include the following selected files:

• FO 118/276, 281, 287, 292, 305, 317, 331 (Argentina, 1906-1913)
• FO 177/297 (Chilean Revolution, 1891)
• FO 508/8 (South and Central America, 1908-1909)
• FO 461/14-22 (Americas general, 1958-1969)

North America, 1824-1961

This collection covers the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, and Central America. Materials include: reports, dispatches, descriptions of leading political personalities, weekly political summaries, and monthly economic reports.

Major periods covered by the papers include the following classes from The National Archives, Kew, in their entirety:

• CO 880/1-32 North America, 1839-1914
• CO 884/1-38 West Indies, 1826-1961
• FO 414/1-278 North America 1824-1941
• FO 461/1-13 America, 1942-1956
• FO 462/1-10 USA, 1947-1956