The collection owes its origin to the steps taken by the Colonial Office in the middle of the nineteenth century to acquire photographic material relating to Britain's overseas dependencies. Two dispatches, dated 29 and 30 November 1869 respectively, from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of British Colombia, request that ‘photographic views of noteworthy buildings and scenery be transmitted to the Colonial Office’, together with ‘photographs of individuals of various races peculiar to the colony’. Many of the volumes of early photographs of public buildings in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaya and South Africa were sent to the Colonial Office in response to this or similar circulars, to be followed before the turn of the century by collections from the West Indian and tropical African territories. Anthropological material was received principally from the African colonies.