Oxford historians have expressed fear that much scholarship on British history may have to be rethought, after it emerged that the Foreign Office had kept 1.2 million files back from public release in contravention of the Public Records Acts.
On Wednesday, academics from the British Academy, including 15 from Oxford, published an open letter calling upon the Foreign Secretary to declassify the files. The British Academy are currently in the process of seeking legal advice to challenge the FCO.
The files, some of which date back to the Crimean War, contain information on a wide range of matters, including colonial affairs, international relations, and spy rings. Historians fear that in an attempt to protect Britain’s global image, the understanding of history may have been tainted.
Nuffield College Professor Iain McLean, Vice-President of Public Policy at the British Academy, was amongst the signatories of the letter. He said, “We know from the recent revelations regarding the Mau Mau uprising that many of these documents are likely to be damaging [to Britain’s image]. It seems likely that other hidden documents may be damaging too”.
Speaking to Cherwell, McLean expressed the importance of public archives in shaping how we understand the past, citing the example of how they were used to expose the deficiencies of authorities during the 1966 Aberfan disaster.
Another signatory, Professor Archie Brown of St Anthony’s College, told Cherwell, “While some of the files held back may be for respectable reasons – such as protecting foreign intelligence informants who are still alive – the historical period covered is too long for this to be a convincing explanation more generally. I should be very surprised if the files did not contain information that showed British governments and their representatives in an embarrassingly bad light”.
He continued, “While they might be unlikely to lead to entirely original interpretations of significant episodes, never voiced before, their importance could lie in shifting the weight of evidence in favour of one existing interpretation rather than another”.
“The aim in keeping them secret may well have been to protect Britain’s image and influence abroad, but it is the wrong way to go about it”.
Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Worcester College, said that “shameful episodes” may have been hidden, adding, “Great Britain sees itself as a leader of the free world and an open society, but great powers did not become great by being nice to everybody”.
The existence of the secret archive was revealed by the Guardian last October. Housed in a high-security facility at Hanslope Park, the archive contains 15 miles of floor-to-ceiling shelving, thought to amount to more files than all other non-disclosed government collections combined.
The Public Records Acts require that government files must be released into the National Archive after a maximum of 30 years, soon to be decreased to 20.
The British Academy’s letter stated, “Those of us who work on the history of some other countries are used to government obstruction when it comes to researching official papers, but the UK is supposed to be a free society. The writing of full and impartial accounts of the cold war, Britain’s colonial past, and other key subjects depends on access to all the available records”.
