Records to reveal British activity in the Gulf

Documents detailing British activity in the Gulf region will be digitised as part of an £8.7 million project due to begin next year.

500,000 pages of material from the India Office archives will be made available online following the scheme, which is the result of a partnership between the British Library and the Qatar Foundation.

Researchers may be able to garner information about a forebear’s imperial past by searching through records such as the 19th- and 20th-century gazetteers – secret volumes originally intended for the eyes of senior officials.

“When available, personal names, place names and keywords will be fully searchable, transforming research possibilities for these collections,” says Oliver Urquhart-Irvine, Head of the British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership.

“It will be of huge interest to anyone researching ancestors or family members who lived or were stationed in the Gulf region across three centuries.”

Image: Littoral map from a report by Lewis Pelly (Indian Political Department, 1851-75) on the tribes, trade and resources of the Gulf. 

© British Library/Qatar Foundation

► Learn more about the project at www.bl.uk