KEEP CALM AND CONCEAL: BRITISH PUBLIC RECORD-KEEPING PRACTICES AND POLICIES, 1800-2018

Abstract

This thesis examines how a prolonged legal battle involving the British law firm Leigh Day, representing the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, exposed a culture of government secrecy, which has been ingrained within British governmental departments and institutions for centuries. In particular, it explores how vast swathes of records from forty-one former British colonial administrations were covertly transported back to the metropole during the period of decolonization. Once in Britain, these records, known as the “migrated archives,” were deliberately concealed within various government repositories for decades. British government employees did not process the “migrated archives” under the terms of the Public Records Act 1958, consult them for the purpose of Freedom of Information requests, and consistently misled foreign governments about the material they held. The case of the “migrated archives” is emblematic of Britain’s corrosive culture of government secrecy and illustrates a troubling history of archival mismanagement.