{"id":2956,"date":"2022-07-15T11:03:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T10:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2022-07-15T15:44:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T14:44:26","slug":"open-letter-about-fco-141-the-migrated-archives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/?p=2956","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter about FCO 141- the ‘migrated archives’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mr Jeff James
\nChief Executive Officer and Keeper
\nThe National Archives<\/p>\n

14th July 2022<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Mr James<\/p>\n

On behalf of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), I am writing to
\nexpress our concern about the recent withdrawal of the FCO 141 series from public access,
\ndue to insecticide contamination.<\/p>\n

As you know, the history of these records, as well as the fact that they remain relatively
\nunder-researched, makes them particularly high-profile among colonial records.
\nThe importance and political sensitivity of these documents is evident in the many
\npublications by academics and archivists on their history and significance – Tim Livsey’s
\narticle in History Workshop Journal being one very recent example (Tim Livsey, ‘Open
\nsecrets: the British “migrated archives”, colonial history, and postcolonial history’, History
\nWorkshop Journal, 93 (2022), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/hwj\/dbac002<\/a>).<\/p>\n

We were glad to see TNA’s statement of 11 July<\/a> giving further details of the problem and the
\nsteps you are taking to deal with it. We appreciate the fact that you have also made recent
\nimprovements to the information given in the catalogue about the unavailability of these
\nrecords.<\/p>\n

In addition to the information given in your statements to date, we would like to ask whether
\nThe National Archives have a view on how insecticide came to be applied to the documents?
\nSince these archives were preserved in 3 7 separate former colonies, it may be that whether
\nindividual sub-series are affected depends on the varying practices of individual colonies. In
\naddition, perhaps this is a problem specific to the bound volumes; we are aware, however,
\nthat many sub-series of FCO 141 consist of files or folders. Do you have a view on this?<\/p>\n

Alternatively, if insecticide was applied to the whole series, this could presumably only have
\noccurred after their arrival in the UK when they were stored in the Foreign Office facility at
\nHayes or at Hanslope Park. Are you in contact with FCDO to shed any light on this, and are
\nyou aware whether they have any record of this operation, if it occurred?<\/p>\n

We would also like to request that you send us a list ofreferences for the volumes in which
\ninsecticide has been detected (or, if this is not possible, a list of the colonies whose records
\nare so far known to be affected).<\/p>\n

We are very glad to read that you are ‘working with specialist consultants to establish a risk
\nassessment and safe handling guidance to create avenues for access to the collection’, and
\nthat you hope to ‘be able to restore access with the appropriate mitigations in place’. Given
\nthe importance of making these records available to the public, we would urge you to make
\nFCO 141 available again as soon as possible, and to set out a likely timetable for doing so. If
\nit is necessary to commit extra resources in order to achieve this, we request that you do so.<\/p>\n

Finally, may we request that information about the progress of this project is made publicly
\navailable on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

I look forward to hearing from you.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely<\/p>\n

Lucy McCann
\nChair, SCOLMA<\/p>\n

cc Sir Geoffrey Vos
\nMaster of the Rolls and Chair of the Advisory Council on National Records and Archives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr Jeff James Chief Executive Officer and Keeper The National Archives 14th July 2022   Dear Mr James On behalf of SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa), I am writing to express our concern about the recent withdrawal of the FCO 141 series from public access, due to insecticide contamination. As you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[87,75,84,86,85],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2959,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions\/2959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scolma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}