British Foreign Office Confidential Prints | National Library of Australia (NLA)

British Foreign Office Confidential Prints

The British Foreign Office Confidential Prints collection, spanning from 1829 to 1922, comprises around 10,800 items that document Britain’s diplomatic relations, crises, and responses to events worldwide. This extensive collection, second in completeness only to the master copy in London’s National Archives, offers invaluable insight into British foreign policy and international affairs.

Key items in the collection

The Library holds one of the largest collections of Foreign Office Confidential Prints outside of Britain, with around 10,800 prints from the 12,000 produced between 1829 and 1922. This collection is second only to the original set at The National Archives in London.

The Confidential Prints include a variety of documents, such as:

  • Despatches and cables between the Foreign Office and British diplomatic and consular missions abroad
  • Communications between the Foreign Office and other government departments
  • Correspondence between the Foreign Office and British organisations and individuals
  • Exchanges between the Foreign Office and foreign diplomatic missions in Britain
  • Memoranda from Foreign Office staff or external experts
  • Miscellaneous documents like reports, legal documents, conference minutes, and proclamations

The collection mainly focuses on specific regions, such as Borneo, Bulgaria, Ecuador, and the Holy See, with larger sections covering China, East Africa, Egypt, France, Turkey, and the United States. Topics include international law, the Panama Canal, the slave trade, the Suez Canal, sugar, and World War I.

The Library also holds microfilm copies of Confidential Prints related to seven areas or topics, which help fill gaps in the original collection and extend beyond 1922. These microfilms cover:

About the British Foreign Office

From the sixteenth century, Britain's foreign relations were managed by the Sovereign and the two Secretaries of State. After 1640, their responsibilities were split geographically into the Northern and Southern Departments. While both Secretaries of State dealt with foreign affairs, they also handled domestic matters, particularly law and order. This structure changed in 1782 with the creation of the Foreign Office and the Home Office, each led by a Secretary of State. Charles James Fox became the first Foreign Secretary. Initially, the Foreign Office was staffed by former officials from the Northern Department. Since 1868, it has been located in a grand Italianate building in Whitehall.

Responsibilities

While other departments, such as the Board of Trade, had international interests, the Foreign Office was always primarily responsible for British foreign policy, relations with foreign legations in London, and managing British embassies, legations, and consulates worldwide. The Colonial Office and India Office handled the colonies, along with their successor departments. In 1968, the Commonwealth Office merged with the Foreign Office, forming the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The Confidential Prints

In 1829, the Foreign Office began printing important papers, despatches, and correspondence for circulation within the department, Cabinet, other government bodies, and British legations and consulates. These documents, known as Confidential Prints, were produced on the Foreign Office's own printing press and grew significantly in volume by the 1850s. They varied in length from single pages to hundreds and documented Britain’s responses to major events, issues, and crises, as well as its relations with specific countries and regions.

Background to the collection

The Library received the Confidential Prints collection as a donation from the Foreign Office in 1961-63 and 1973. In 1972, the Library also purchased microfilm copies of several categories of these prints from the Public Record Office in London.

The general collection houses the Confidential Prints (Sq 327.42 GRE), and a bound typescript list of the prints held is shelved alongside them, starting from no. 1 and ending at no. 6924.

A classified listing of numbers 1-10,600 (1829-1915) of the Confidential Prints was published as volume 23 in number 13 of the Public Record Office’s Lists and indexes, Supplementary Series, New York, Kraus-Thomson, 1975 (Sq 942 GRE). The list is also available on microfilm (mfm G 7667). A manuscript numerical listing and a printed subject index of the Confidential Prints (nos. 1-10,000) can be found on reel mfm G 7668.

There is no single numerical listing for the post-1915 Confidential Prints. They can, however, be found listed in the Kew Lists (mc 1924), under the relevant geographical class. For instance, the F.O. 405 class list covers the confidential prints for China and the F.O. 432 class list covers the confidential prints for France.

This guide was prepared using these references:

Page published: 13 Jan 2025

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