IOR/L/PS/12/1485

The volume contains papers regarding the transfer of the civil administration of Aden from the Government of India to the Colonial Office, and the preparation of the Aden Colony Order in Council (1936), and 'Royal Sign Manual and Signet to the Governor and Commander in Chief of the Colony of Aden (1937)'.

The volume is predominantly made up of correspondence between the India Office Political Department, the Colonial Office, the Aden Chief Commissioner (later Governor) Bernard Reilly, the India Office Legal Advisor's Department, and the Secretary of State for India. The volume also contains numerous heavily-annotated drafts of the Order in Council and the Royal Instructions, plus minutes of meetings held at the Colonial Office, and extracts from the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform. Final drafts can be found at folios 13-20, in addition to copies of Reilly's inauguration speech (folios 25-28).

The correspondence covers a range of topics, including: Indian and Arab sentiment over the transfer; problems of condominion; the importance of Aden to Britain's imperial aims; representations from the Indian and Aden business communities; the maintenance of representation for Aden subjects at the Bombay High Court; Aden's free port status; questions of income tax and salt duty; the wording of the Order in Council and Royal Instructions; and a proposal to list the Kuria Muria Islands as a named dependency of Aden, comparable to Shaikh Othman, Imad and Hiswa, and Perim.

The volume includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references contained in the volume by year. This is placed at the end of the correspondence (folio 4).