IOR/L/PS/12/336

The file contains correspondence relating to wartime transfers from Iraq to India for the safe keeping of the records of the Political Resident in Turkish Arabia (Iraq) and Consul-General at Baghdad, 1756-1917, and also those of the High Commissioner for Iraq at Baghdad, a post established in 1920. The first transfer of records took place after the British occupation of Baghdad in 1917.

It is agreed between government officials that the work of examining, selecting and cataloguing the records would be done at the Government of India Imperial Record Department, Calcutta, and paid for by the Foreign Office. It is also agreed that at the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), the selected records would be transferred to England for permanent preservation at the Public Record Office (later the National Archives of the United Kingdom). There are two enclosures of an earlier date than the main correspondence. These are a telegram from the Political Resident in Turkish Arabia to the Government of India in 1918, and two copies of Foreign Office instructions issued in 1920 about the criteria for the preservation or destruction of British Consular records, in accordance with the Public Record Office Act, 1877.

The principal correspondents are: Stephen Gaselee, Librarian, Foreign Office; John P Gibson, Head of Political Department, India Office; and M Smith, Secretary, Government of India, Foreign and Political Department.

The file includes a divider, which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the file by year. This is placed at the back of the correspondence.