A uniquely accessible archive from a network of intelligence agencies

Britain began the twentieth-century controlling vast regions of the world. The spheres of influence of the British government stretched from the UK and Ireland to mandates, protectorates and colonies in the Middle East and Africa, from the islands of the West Indies to British Malaya and Singapore in South East Asia, as well as to the sub-continent of India, and the self-governing Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. 

Gathering, processing and analysing information from every corner of the globe during two world wars and the fragile peace that followed was a task that saw the development of a network of agencies and government departments, collecting the raw data of intelligence and funnelling it back to Whitehall and the central machinery of government. The resultant historical record of the twentieth century is uniquely broad and, today, uniquely accessible to researchers through this new digitised collection.

Including many previously classified documents, this archive will offer new viewpoints on the machinery of British intelligence, decolonisation, and global policy and strategy, as well as providing important insight into international politics and diplomacy in the twentieth-century.