| Description | Papers of Harold Beken Thomas relating to his role on the CMS Africa Committee 1945-1971 and CMS Executive Committee 1946-1966.
Including material relating to the deposit of CMS material in the Kenya National Archive, papers of the CMS History Advisory Committee, the Overseas Bookshops Commission, West Africa bookshops, particularly the Niger and Lagos bookshops, papers relating to building projects and CMS property in Africa, higher education in West Africa with special reference to Fourah Bay College. |
| Administrative History | Harold Beken Thomas (1888-1971), colonial administrator and historian, entered the Colonial Service in 1911 and spent the next thirty years in Uganda, retiring as Director of Surveys in 1940. He developed an extensive knowledge of Uganda and East Africa in general. He assisted in the development of the Royal Commonwealth Society's 'Dictionary of East African biography'. Thomas served as Vice President of the Uganda Society and of the Church Mission Society.
Source: http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk (accessed 23 April 2007) |
| Custodial History | Deposited with the CMS September 1977 and transferred to the University of Birmingham: Special Collections July 2003. In 2017 the collection was withdrawn for use by the CMS Archivist (Oxford). The collection was returned to the Cadbury Research Library 6 November 2024.
Parts of the collection, especially those containing personal details of staff in Sierra Leone and Nigerian bookshops and the files on CMS property and buildings in Africa were closed up until 2010 for reasons of Data Protection and due to the confidential nature of some of the contents: O6-O10. |