State Papers Online Colonial

Tracing the History of Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong through British Official and Non-Official Documents

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By Liping Yang, Senior Manager, Academic Publishing, and Emma Harris, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Gale has recently released Part IV in its State Papers Online Colonial: Asia series (SPOCA 4). This new module provides a perfect continuation of State Papers Online Colonial Asia Part I-III through a combination of major Colonial Office files featuring (East & West) Malaysia and Singapore as well as a curated collection of Hong Kong-related British official and non-official files selected from the archives of the Colonial Office, the Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Defence, and the British Council.

Consisting of around 380,000 pages of documents digitized from 15 series, this new module features a wide range of content types including correspondence, register of out-letters, registered files, government gazettes, sessional papers, and maps and plans, providing a wealth of valuable material for researching the history of Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong as former British colonies between 1844 and 1997.

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Exploring the State Papers Online Colonial module about Singapore, East Malaysia, and Brunei

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|By Julia de Mowbray, Publisher at Gale |

September 2023 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Lee Kuan Yew (1923—2015), the founder of the People’s Action Party, Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and a Member of the Singapore Parliament until his death in 2015. This month also sees the launch of State Papers Online Colonial: Asia, Part II: Singapore, East Malaysia and Brunei, the digitisation of the British Colonial Office files documenting the Colonial Office’s activities in these territories until independence. The coincidence is poignant as Lee Kuan Yew founded the People’s Action Party to fight for independence from colonial rule, and led Singapore first to independence from the British, then from Malaysia, and on to an envied economic and social success story.

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Asia, as Recorded in British Colonial Office Files

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SPO Colonial header image

│By Julia de Mowbray, Publisher at Gale│

Gale’s first online archive of British Colonial Office files, State Papers Online Colonial, has just been released. The first four parts1 will publish the Colonial Office (CO) files relating to the administration of Britain’s colonies in Asia, namely, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei, British North Borneo, Ceylon, and the naval base at Wei-Hai-Wei (Burma and India were administered by the India Office).  

Part 1: Far East, Hong Kong, and Wei-Hai-Wei includes files from the Colonial Office’s general departments on Asia as well as the those from the administration of Hong Kong and Wei-Hai-Wei (Weihai). The Colonial Office general departments were the “Eastern” (1927-1951), “Hong Kong and Pacific” (1946-1955), “Far Eastern Reconstruction” (1942-1945), “Far Eastern” (1941-1967) and “South East Asia” (1950-1956) departments, spanning different periods, plus the early East Indies papers (1570-1856). These are joined by the Asia files from Confidential Original Correspondence, Confidential Print, Maps, Photographs series. In all it is around 385,000 pages. This part, therefore, is not limited to Britain’s colonies, but includes documents on China, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea. Each file is tagged with its subject country or countries to help researchers refine their search.

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