Home Miscellaneous

The range of subjects covered in Home Miscellaneous is extremely wide. The bulk of the material relates to the East India Company period and especially to trade; disputes involving Company servants; revenue, financial and judicial administration in India; and to military and diplomatic operations in the sub-continent and outside (e.g. Nepal, Burma, Afghanistan).The groups of papers found in Home Miscellaneous include:. 'Birdwood Papers' i.e. the 17th century documents described in Sir George Birdwood's report of 1878, most of which went into the Factory Records series [IOR:G]; 'East Indies' series [IOR:H/93-190a] consisting of correspondence on Indian affairs received by the Secretary of State's Office 1748-1784, which appears to have been made over to the Board of Control on its establishment in 1784 as a body of precedent; Wellesley Papers [IOR:H/457-479] comprising original letters from the Governors of Madras and Bombay to Marquis Wellesley. The earlier volumes have Lord Wellesley's bookplate and the collection was presumably given by him to the Board of Control; Papers left by James Cumming, head of the Revenue and Judicial Department at the Board of Control [IOR:H/525-531]. These were purchased in 1827 by the Court of Directors for £400; 'Unrecorded Papers' of the Board of Control. The group includes a register of these papers in a book with the watermark of 1811 [IOR:H/719], and an index [IOR:H/720]. This collection was split up, with some documents going into Charters [IOR:A], French in India [IOR:I/1], and Factory Records [IOR:G], but most were distributed amongst the Home Miscellaneous volumes according to subject. They may generally be distinguished by an endorsement such as Reg. No. 2357; Miscellaneous documents preserved in the Examiner's Department at East India House. There is a register compiled in 1804 [IOR:H/716] when the collection numbered 2981 documents. When Henry Waterfield compiled a list in 1876, there were only 378 documents, the bulk apparently having been destroyed when the India Office moved to Victoria Street in 1860. The collection had already been much reduced before 1814, when Thomas Fisher, a clerk in the Examiner's Department, was given the task of arranging them. 'Fisher's Papers', as they were known, were broken up and rearranged by Danvers according to subject, with many being added to Home Miscellaneous. These papers may be recognised by a double number e.g. 1990 (268), the former number being the 1804 register number, and the second apparently given by Fisher; Letter books of David Scott, Chairman of the Court of Directors [IOR:H/728-731]; Papers of General John Jacob [IOR: H/549-552]; Papers of Sir John Malcolm [IOR:H/733-737]; Volumes from the Political Department; Old records catalogues and indexes; H/815-864 were additional deposits to the Home Miscellaneous papers which have been transferred to the India Office Private Papers.

In 1884, Frederic Danvers, the first Registrar and Superintendent of Records at the India Office, began to arrange the unbound documents in his charge. He planned a series of 'Home Miscellaneous', consisting entirely of papers relating to home affairs, to correspond with the 'Miscellaneous' sections of the Factory Records and Marine Records. The first 47 volumes more or less conformed to this plan, but the scheme then widened to include documents dealing with, and even originating from, the settlements in the East. The series became the depository of every document for which a suitable place could not be found elsewhere in the archive series, although the title remained unchanged.62 volumes of private papers were added to Home Miscellaneous after Samuel Hill's catalogue was published in 1927, but were subsequently transferred to the European Manuscripts section of the India Office Records.

Unrestricted

For published catalogue with index see : S C Hill, 'Catalogue of the Home Miscellaneous Series of the India Office Records' (London, HMSO, 1927)