IOR/R/20/A/1-1059

R/20/A1-1059 General Compilation Volumes, 1839-1905

This is the main series of Residency archives covering the period up to 1905. It consists of general correspondence, bound up yearly and numbered in chronological sequence.

The contents of the volumes reflect the growth in complexity of the Residency administration from the early years to the beginning of the twentieth century.

At first the Political Agent, or Resident, and one or two Assistants conducted all civil, financial, judicial and military business themselves and corresponded almost exclusively with the Bombay Government Political and Military Departments. The correspondence (letters received and sent, with enclosures) was roughly arranged and bound according to very broad administrative divisions based on bombay Government procedure. Later as the workload of the Regency increased, the Aden administrators corresponded more with individual Bombay departments and their letters were preserved separately, eg. Military, Judicial, Revenue, Marine, Public Works etc. At the same time, other documents such as memoranda, internal minuting, public notices, started to be included. Between 1854 and 1878 these volumes were described as 'compilations'.

The bland titles of most of the compilations conceal an enormous amount of interesting material, preserved mainly in the form of reports to the Bombay Government. There are, for example, 'miscellaneous reports and papers presenting historical and political information on Aden and its vicinity' (R/20/A/54) including a meteorological journal kept at Mukalla, 1845, a narrative of the British occupation of Aden and a 'history of the present family of Lahej'. There are papers relating to the trial of Captain S. B. Haines (R/20/A/115-16). For most of the late nineteenth century there are printed copies of administration reports as well as subsidiary returns. There are also separate volumes of material on the affairs of Perim, Zanzibar, Shihr and Mukalla and Abyssinia.　

There are large gaps in the sequence. Climatic conditions in Aden were not exactly suitable for the long-term preservation of paper. No record keeper was employed and the physical conditions in which the records were kept left much to be desired. In 1897 some volumes were stolen and sold as wrapping-paper to sweatmeat vendors in Tawahi (see R/20/A/877-78) and in 1919 another theft depleted the archives further. The IOR series of Bombay Proceedings (IOR:P) is a valuable alternative source which, to some extent, duplicates the R/20/A/1-1059 material. There is also R/20/E (Political and Secret Department, Government of Bombay: files relating to Aden, 1837-1931).

The volumes were listed by Toussaint under the reference AIA. They have now been numbered straight through as R/20/A/1-1059. The original volume numbers are given in the list after the IOR call number and it is these numbers to which the contemporary indexes (Z/R/20/2-20) refer. There are separate indexes covering most years. In addition, from about 1855, many volumes contain lists of contents and from the early 1880s almost every volume has its own index. The Register (Z/R/20/1) gives a complete list of the yearly correspondence volumes preserved between 1838 and 1905, together with notes on location and disposal. For example, from 1887 onwards, some volumes relating to foreign relations were given a number in the main annual sequence but then kept separate and re-numbered as Confidential Branch files (R/20/A/1171-1221). The register also notes a group of volumes which were transferred to the British Somali Coast Protectorate administration in 1905.