James's archive at the British Library
In 2024, the British Library acquired James's comprehensive archive of papers and documents.
(For overseas readers, the British Library is our national library and is one of the largest libraries in the world, with items in its collection that date as far back as 2000 BC.)
The archive of 49 boxes starts from when James joined the Colonial Office in 1953 and continues to the early years of this century. It includes personal papers, document drafts, copies of all James’s outward correspondence from 1973-2001, copies of published articles, notes about speaking engagements and the preparation of his books, and issues of some limited circulation newsletters and magazines.
The full list of contents can be found here.
The British Library has yet to start cataloguing the archive. And because of the quantity of material in the archive, it's expected that cataloguing will take about a year.
At that point, the material will become available to researchers. Anyone who can visit the British Library's premises in London will be able to obtain a reader's ticket and access the archive.
Alison Robertson and I are very grateful to the following for their contributions to finding a new home for the archive:
- Stewart Wallis, the former Executive Director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), who was the driving force behind the cataloguing of the archive
- Elna Kotze of NEF who catalogued the archive with the utmost skill and professionalism
- everyone at NEF who has been involved with the storage of the archive over many years
- Dr Emmeline Ledgerwood for providing the introduction to the British Library
- Jonathan Pledge and Eleanor Casson of the British Library for making the acquisition process proceed so smoothly.