These papers primarily comprise the records of BibleLands, previously the Turkish Missions Aid Society and then the Bible Lands Society. BibleLands is a non-governmental ecumenical charity supporting humanitarian projects primarily, but not exclusively, in Turkey, Syria, Egypt, the Balkans, Lebanon, Palestine, Bulgaria and Cyprus. The papers include records of the Society from its establishment in 1854 to the present day. The records of BibleLands include minute books from 1854-1958; financial and administrative records including annual reports from 1855-1893, from 1894 onwards these annual reports were included in the Society's magazine 'The Star in the East'; printed publications including 'The Star in the East' from 1883-2012; and a collection of 834 photographs and postcards, largely from the early to mid twentieth century, depicting scenes from Aden, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, The Holy Land, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia and Croatia, Serbia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey.
As the society's original objective was to support existing mission work with money rather than men, many reports found in 'The Star of the East' were sent from a variety of organisations including the American Board of Commissioners; schools whose teachers were sponsored by the Society of the Promotion of Female Education in the East; and reports from many other British and American led missions, as well as a host of locally founded and led schools, clinics, orphanages and Bible depositories. They include information about early famine relief, as well as reports from mission stations during the Balkan Wars of the 1870s, and from Turkey during the Armenian massacres of the 1890s, the genocide of 1915, and various later atrocities perpetrated on the Armenians.
More latterly, there is material relating to the Lebanon Civil War of the 1980s and ongoing conflicts in modern day Israel. The papers also comprise records of associated bodies, including the records of The Lovell Society; records relating to the establishment of the Bulgarian Bible School in the 1930s; records of The Four Homes of Mercy; and records relating to Anatolia College. As a whole, the papers are a rich source of information for the study of missionary work in the Middle East from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.