History of Great Britain and the British Empire: Primary Texts

"More than 100 years of this major UK national newspaper can be viewed in full digital facsimile form, with copious advertisements, news stories, and images that capture twentieth-century culture and society (Gale)."

Module I: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947. This collection consists of India Office Records A-D, covering classes IOR/A, B and D, and comprises the foundational charters of the Company plus the minutes and memoranda of its various central administrative organs. This is material generated by the East India Company’s London headquarters and top-level material sent back by Company servants overseas and pertains to the governance of the Company and its territorial possessions.

Module II: Factory Records for South Asia and South East Asia, 1595-1830.This collection consists of India Office Records G, 641 volumes from 7 factories or factory groups in east Asia, the Middle East and Africa, dated from 1608-1870. It also includes volumes from IOR/R/19, Records of East India Company and India Office Agencies in Egypt (1832-1870).

Module III: Factory Records for China, Japan and the Middle East, 1596-1870. This collection consists of India Office Records G, the sub-classes of Factory Records which were not published in Module II, covering the Company’s activities in China, Japan, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, St Helena and South Africa. It includes correspondence relating to Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile to St Helena and Sir Harford Jones, envoy to Persia.

Module IV: Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict. This collection consists of India Office Records E, correspondence between the East India Company, the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, the Company’s various settlements, and European houses of agency.

Module V: India Office Records E; Correspondence: Domestic Life, Governance and Territorial Expansion (1600-1859) This collection includes correspondence between the East India Company and British government departments, and the East India Company’s Bombay and Madras Presidencies, in addition to the Home Correspondence series (IOR/E/1) containing letters between Company officials and merchants, traders, officials and members of the general public.

Rice University owns access to the following modules:
1) State Papers Online, 1509-1714:
● Part I: The Tudors, Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, 1509-1603: State Papers Domestic contains "the official records of the secretaries of state serving the ruling monarch of the day. It encompasses every facet of early modern government, including social and economic affairs, law and order, religious policy, Crown possessions, and intelligence .
● Part II: The Tudors, Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, 1509-1603: State Papers Foreign, Ireland, Scotland, Borders and Registers of the Privy Council contains documents that record the relationship between England and the rest of Europe as well as the relationships among the European states, both Catholic and Protestant.
● Part III: The Stuarts: James I to Anne, 1603-1714: State Papers Domestic documents one of the most compelling and turbulent eras in Britain’s social, political, and religious history," by illustrating the Stuarts’ internal struggles through a wealth of primary source documents.
● Part IV: The Stuarts: James I to Anne, 1603-1714: State Papers Foreign, Ireland, and Registers of the Privy Council "includes correspondence written and received by the ruling monarchs; letters from the rulers of Europe, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire; letters and reports of ambassadors, envoys and agents, and members of trading companies; treaties, lists of ships and goods, and other documents of trade.

2) State Papers Online, Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782:
● Part I: State Papers Domestic, Military and Naval and the Registers of the Privy Council: uncover the details of British domestic politics and society in the Age of Enlightenment. Researchers will find a wealth of once classified detail about the reigns of the three Georges, including behind-the-scenes accounts of the turbulent events of George I’s reign (the Jacobite uprisings); the development of cabinet government; the ascension of George II and the consolidation of Whig supremacy; the riots surrounding libertarian politician John Wilkes; and the inept handling of the colonies that marred the early years of George III’s reign.
● Part II: State Papers Foreign: Low Countries and Germany: contains the papers written or received by the secretaries of state in the processes of British diplomacy in the Low Countries and Germany through the eighteenth century.
● Part III: State Papers Foreign: Western Europe: includes the State Papers series relating to France, Dunkirk, Portugal, Spain, Malta, the Italian States and Rome, Genoa, Tuscany, Venice, Savoy and Sardinia, Sicily and Naples, as well as supplementary records of the Levant Company in Aleppo and the Aleppo consulate. It also includes the Royal Letters and Treaties series.
● Part IV: State Papers Foreign: Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Turkey: presents, digitised for the first time, the letters, memorials and treaties pertaining to Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Saxony, Prussia, Russia, Turkey and the Barbary States. It also includes papers sent to the British Secretaries of State from foreign ministers in England, as well as ‘confidential’ and intercepted letters between key figures in international politics. Eighteenth century scholars will find new insights into international attitudes to Britain and the condition of Europe, as colonial ambitions, dynastic alliances and emerging trade networks were all widely discussed.

3) State Papers Online, the Stuart and Cumberland Papers from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, 1579-1823:
● The Stuart Papers represent the correspondence and personal documents of the exiled members of the Stuart dynasty after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Available alongside the Cumberland Papers of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and second surviving son of George II, they provide a unique window into the world of the Stuarts and their Jacobite followers as well as to the incumbent Hanoverian monarchy during a time of continental wars, domestic conspiracies and rival claims to the throne.

"The RGS holds one of the largest private map collections in the world. It includes one million sheets of maps and charts, 3000 atlases, 40 globes (as gores or mounted on stands) and 1000 gazetteers. The earliest printed cartographic item dates back to 1485 (Wiley)."