IOR/V/10

The annual administration reports of the territories of British India provide a summary record of the main events and developments in each department of government. They follow a form prescribed by the Government of India in around 1870. This laid down the five categories of information to be included: (1) 'Physical, political and fiscal geography' (geography, relations with native states, population, civil divisions, land revenues); (2) 'Protection' (legislative, judicial, prisons, police, military, marine); 'Production and distribution' (finance, public works, railways, agriculture, prices of produce, mines, manufactures, trade, coinage and currency, charitable institutions) (4) 'Instruction' (ecclesiastical, edication, literary and scientific) (5) 'Life' (births, deaths and marriages, hospital returns, vaccination returns). With flexibility to add or drop subjects as events or local variation required, the framework remained in place until the conclusion of the series in the 1940s.

In order to set the annual reports into their wider context, chapters of standing information on the history, geography and structure of the administration (known as 'red letter' chapters because of the red print of their titles) were included about every ten years, between 1872/73 and 1921/22.

Early reports, in most cases from 1855/56 to 1871/72, are bound together by years and will be found in the present list under the heading "India".