Archive Documents - Resources | Economic History Malaysia

Resources

Archive Documents

An extensive collection of British Colonial Office digitally archived documents, amounting to more than 1.4 million pages, has been acquired by the Economic History of Malaysia (EHM) Project from Cengage Gale, sourced from The National Archives, Kew Gardens, United Kingdom. These records are available for viewing and downloading on request by authorized users for non-commercial purposes.

These documents provide dispatches and contemporary correspondence from colonial administrators, local officials, and experts on historical matters related to the institutional, political, administrative, economic, demographic, and social development of the following territories:

Straits Settlements (SS) of Penang, Melaka, and Singapore (and Labuan, a SS between 1907–1946), the Federated Malay States (FMS) of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Pahang, and the Unfederated Malaya States (UMS) of Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Johor, as well as North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak.

The documents offer deep insights and understanding of multiple aspects of the development of British colonialism on the territories that eventually came together as Malaya/Malaysia.

What the digital archive resources contain

The digital information-base contains a large collection of primary source material covering government correspondence, international treaties, reports, and official records. It gives deep insights into colonial governance, as well as its political, social, and economic dynamics. The information-base is organized in three modules:

Malayan states (FMS and the UMS) and the Straits Settlements (1759–1966)
Singapore, North Borneo (Sabah), Sarawak, and Brunei Darussalam (1844–1967)
Hong Kong and Wei-Hai-Wei (1570–1967)

Accessing the documents

This online digital information-base is user-friendly and can be searched, with prior approval by the Economic History of Malaysia (EHM) Project, using keywords with filtering by time (date) ranges. Approval, and terms of use, are at the sole discretion of the management of the EHM Project. To apply to access the EHM digital archive collection click on this button.

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