The purpose of this article is to throw some light on the origin, arrangement, content, indexing and availability of Colonial Office Confidential Print and to suggest that for students of British imperialism, especially as it developed in Africa, CO Print deserves more attention than it currently receives. Admittedly there are difficulties in discovering precisely what was issued in Print format, particularly for the period from 1920 up to the demise of the Colonial Office in 1966, but with the assistance of the guides and indexes, some unpublished, to which reference will be made, access can be gained to this valuable resource.

Confidential Print first appeared within the Colonial Office in the mid nineteenth century, principally for reasons of administrative convenience. At a time when correspondence with the colonies was conducted by the exchange between individual Governors and the Secretary of State, of handwritten despatches – typewriters were not introduced into the colonial Office until 1893 – the production of printed volumes of correspondence on the more important issues of the day was necessary in order that the main papers on a subject could be widely circulated within the office without constant reference to the original despatches.

With a population of roughly 15 million, Ghana covers a land area of approximately 92,000 sq. miles., almost the same as that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The country is divided into 10 regions, with English being the official language used in schools and for business. The educational programme follows, to a large extent, the pattern of Western (chiefly British) ways. A striking and potentially disturbing feature of the population is its youthfulness. The highest population densities are found in the urban and farming areas of the southern part of the country. Despite considerable urbanisation following World War II and independence in 1957, rural dwellers still represent 70-80 per cent of the population. Altogether, there are no less than 75 different languages and dialects, each more or less associated with a distinct tribal group. Fortunately, the divisive tendencies which might be expected to arise from this situation have been kept under control, largely as a result of imaginative governmental policies over many decades.

My presentation divides into two parts. The first explains what BDEEP is in terms of how the project originated, how it is administered and financed and what it is (and what it is not) intended to achieve. The second looks more closely at the place of Africa within the project by explaining at greater length the contents of some of the volumes and by introducing a number of documents which will be included.

First then the background to the project. BDEEP has its origins in two earlier collections of published documents concerning the end of British rule in South and South-East Asia. The first is Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942-1947, which was edited by Professor Nicholas Mansergh and published in twelve volumes between 1970 and 1983 by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO).