James Philip Mills (PP MS 58) was a pioneering anthropologist in the study of tribal communities in north-east India and the borders of Burma. Born in Stockport, Cheshire,in 1890, Mills was educated at Winchester School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1913 he joined the Indian Civil Service and served in North-East India until 1947. He was Sub-divisional officer at Mokokchung in the Naga Hills of Assam from 1917-1924 and
Women, Power and Religion in Bhopal, India تاریخ سفر مکّہ Tārīkh-i safar-i Makkah (A Journey to Mecca) by Sikandar Begum, Nawab of Bhopal The discovery in SOAS Special Collections of a manuscript thought lost for the last 150 years allows us to re-introduce an extraordinary figure of 19th century India: Sikandar Begum, Regent and Nawab of Bhopal (1816-1868).
This week’s blog looks at a fascinating piece from our collections, likely the world’s earliest surviving text printed in Bengal and Northern India, a copy of the ‘Calendar for the year of our Lord MDCCLXXVIII. Calculated to the Meridian of Calcutta‘ (part of MS 12235, held by SOAS Special Collections). This guest blog is written by Andrew Otis, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, Philip Merrill College of
Our collections at SOAS Archives reflect the British interaction with Africa and Asia over the last 250 years and include the papers of missionary societies, NGOs and campaign groups, and business organisations. Not where you would expect to find tales of love, perhaps, but every Archive has its romances and Valentine’s Day seems to be a good day to share a few! Voices of those in our Archive who travelled and explored Asia and
This week’s guest blog comes from Nicola Lawson, Assistant Curator at the Beacon Museum, Whitehaven, Cumbria, to coincide with the opening of an exhibition at the Museum, ‘Edith Brown: Medicine Woman’, which runs from 13th January to 25th March 2018. A number of items relating to Edith Brown held in a collection of papers relating to the Ludhiana Medical College (ref: MS 381189) have been loaned to the Museum from
This week’s blog is written by our South Asia Librarian, Farzana Whitfield, and marks the 70th anniversary of the Partition of India. Farzana looks back on her family’s personal experience and memories of Partition. This August marks 70 years of India’s independence from British rule (15th August) giving birth to 2 nations- a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan (14th August). Subsequently there were 3 wars between India
In the lead-up to the SOAS Centenary in 2016, we will be taking a look at the history of the School through collections held at SOAS Archives. This week, the School’s Corporate Records Manager & Archivist, Adele Picken, looks at the papers of Ralph Lilley Turner, second Director of the School of Oriental Studies (later School of Oriental & African Studies), 1937-1957. Ralph Lilley Turner was a renowned Indologist and became the second Director
SOAS Archives is pleased to announce that the archive of the Churches of Christ Missionary Committee is now available to researchers (Ref: CoC). The collection was deposited at SOAS Library by the United Reformed Church History Society in May 2015, and adds to the significant range of missionary collections held by the Archives & Special Collections department. Our thanks go to Margaret Thompson, former Archivist at Westminster College, Cambridge, who has
This week’s blog looks at the ‘India: A People Partitioned’ Oral Archive (ref: OA3) held at SOAS Archives – a significant collection of oral histories relating to the Partition of India in 1947. The 205 interviews in the collection were compiled by the broadcaster and historian Andrew Whitehead for the BBC World Service radio series India: A People Partitioned (1997; 2000) and his later radio and historical work on Kashmir, 1947. The oral archive represents an important social history
As it is World Camera Day today, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look at the work of anthropologist, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf. Born and educated in Vienna, Haimendorf studied anthropology and archaeology at the Theresianische Akademie at the University of Vienna before working for a few years in Vienna as a research assistant. He was awarded a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation that enabled him to study at
