These estimates were compiled by the Secretary, primarily J A Boxhall.
The files listed below comprise primarily the files of J A Boxhall, Secretary from 1971-1986, when he retired due to ill-health. He was replaced temporarily by H F Patterson. In 1987 a new Administrative Secretary, D E Phillips, was appointed.
The Institute moved into the new building at Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square, in December 1975; it was officially opened on 1 April 1976.
The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies premises at 25 Russell Square were opened on 11 June 1948. The Institute later expanded into 26 Russell Square, and in 1956 took over additional premises at 1 Woburn Square. A new filing system (see A.IALS 5) was instituted for building, works and maintenance files covering the new building at Charles Clore House, 17 Russell Square, from December 1975.
The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Secretary and Librarian undertook the administration of the Institute under the direction of the Committee of Management and was also responsible for building up the library. The position was held by K Howard Drake from 1947 until his death in 1967. He was succeeded by W A F P Steiner. In 1971 the functions were separated, with Steiner continuing as IALS Librarian while administrative duties passed to a new Secretary, J A Boxhall.
Working records of the Library were produced in the conduct of business. Gate signing-in books were created at a rate of about 1 per month from 1975 to 1998.
The United Kingdom Alliance was founded in 1853 in Manchester to work for prohibition of alcohol in the UK. This occurred in a context of support for the type of law passed by General Neal Dow in Maine, USA, in 1846, prohibiting the sale of intoxicants.
It was initiated by Nathaniel Card (1805-1856), an Irish cotton manufacturer and member of the Society of Friends. He had also been a member of the Manchester and Salford Temperance Society since 1852, and was interested in what was coming to be known as the Maine Law. At a private meeting at Card's house on 20 July 1852, the National League for the Total and Legal Suppression of Intemperance was formed. Other members included Alderman William Hervey of Salford and Joseph Brotherton MP (Salford). At the third meeting of the League a Provisional Committee was formed, based in Manchester.
Their objectives were openly political, to form and enlighten public opinion nationally, believing that the self-denying and benevolent efforts of temperance societies would never be able to end the liquor trade while legalised temptation to drink and get drunk was permitted. They aimed for total and immediate legislative suppression of traffic in intoxicating beverages.
The name of the League was changed on 14 Feb 1853, to the UK Alliance for the Suppression of the Traffic in all Intoxicating Liquors, and Sir Walter C Trevelyan, became the first president in June the same year, with a General Council holding its first meeting on October.
A weekly newspaper Alliance News was begun in 1854, a journal of moral and social reform, and sold for one penny. Since 1980 it has been published as a bi-monthly magazine.
They were not a total abstinence society, and membership was open to teetotallers and drinkers alike, by 1858 membership had risen to 4500, and £3000 was raised by subscription for their work. Their chief public spokesman was Sir Wilfrid Lawson, MP (1829-1906).
In 1862, the London Union of Alliance members changed to the London Auxiliary of the Alliance, and appointed it's the first London agent, Rev John Hanson. The Alliance had occupied premised in Victoria St, London, until the decision was made to build a new headquarters. A site in Caxton St was purchased in 1937, the new building - Alliance House - being opened in 1938, at a cost of £75,000.
In 1942, the Alliance became a limited company, the UK Temperance Alliance Ltd. By the 1970s the main role of the Alliance was educational work and its interest had broadened to other areas of addiction besides alcohol (much of which is undertaken by the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), a trading arm of the Alliance. In 2003, the UK Temperance Alliance was renamed the Alliance House Foundation.
National Temperance Federation (NTF) was reconstituted at its annual meeting in 1936, and declared its policy as the representation of every section of the temperance movement of approximately three million members of temperance organisations throughout the country.
National Commercial Temperance League (NCTL) was formed in the 1890s to appeal to the business and professional community in the economic and ethical field of thought. In 1953, it approached the UKA with a view to amalgamation.
National United Temperance Council (NUTC) was founded in July 1896 at a National Conference of County United Temperance Councils. The aim of both County and National UTCS was to consolidate support amongst various temperance organisations for temperance legislation and to promote the temperance movement in general.
Parliamentary Temperance Committee, consisting of members of parliament supporting temperance legislation was formed around 1906.
The Band of Hope was founded in 1847, with the aim of instructing boys and girls as to the properties of alcohol and the consequences of its consumption. Generally involving midweek meetings with music, slides, competitions and addresses on the importance of total abstinence. By 1855, there were so many local bands that a London Union was formed and in 1864, this was expanded to become the UK Band of Hope Union. By 1901 there were more than 28,000 societies with a total membership of more than 3.5 million children.
International Order of Good Templars (IOGT) was formed around 1852 in the United States of America, it spread to England around 1869, to Scotland and Ireland about 1970, and Wales 1871. Its object was to secure personal abstinence from the use of all intoxicating drinks as a beverage and the prohibition of the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating drink. Membership was achieved by signing a lifelong pledge of abstinence.
The Institute of Classical Studies was founded in 1953 by the Senate of the University of London as a partnership between the University and the Hellenic and Roman Societies. The Portrait Collection has been built up over many years, and is constantly updated.
The pamphlets here both date from 1964 and represent the views of the Cairo-based Committee affiliated with both the Peoples' Socialist Party and the Aden TUC. In the period prior to the end of British administration these views are anti-colonialist and broadly socialist, with much space devoted to declarations of support for and by like-minded groups in other countries.
The material here is the product of a local anti-apartheid group.
In contrast to its brief period of political unity the Caribbean region has produced pressure groups of a more enduring nature. The Caribbean Conference of Churches is an ecumenical body founded in 1971 and concerned with problems of human rights and poverty in the region, whilst the Caribbean Youth Conference was an organisation bringing together national youth organisations for educational and exchange purposes. This collection holds a small quantity of materials from the 1980s dealing with these groups and their aims.
The majority of the materials held here are concerned with the ethnic strife between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority and its Tamil minority. The latter considered itself discriminated against by language and university admisson policies introduced in the 1950s and 1970s respectively, as well as by the encouragement of Sinhalese settlement in the traditionally Tamil northern and eastern areas of the island, and in response a number of militant Tamil groups emerged, most notably the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Folowing the communal riots of 1981 and 1983 support for these groups increased, as the country degenerated into a state of civil war. Despite peace initiatives and intervention by India the situation continues to remain unstable, hence the continued issuance of material by the groups represented here, notably the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka.
Dominica passed between French and British hands several times in its colonial history and this, coupled with the early emergence of land-owning ex-slaves meant the island developed along different political lines to the big sugar colonies such as Barbados and Jamaica. By 1961 a Democratic Labour Party government had been elected, and it was this party which led Dominica first to associated statehood in 1967 and then to full independence eleven years later. 1980 saw the election of the Caribbean's first female prime minister, Eugenia Charles (Dominica Freedom Party), and although she had to survive coup attempts during her fifteen-year premiership subsequent peaceful transfers of power appeared to indicate that Dominica's political system was still functioning. The two disparate groups whose materials are held here constitute on the one-hand an old-fashioned organisation representing producers' interests (the Dominica Peasant Proprietors' Union) and on the other a classic pressure group seeking to prevent a miscarraige of justice in the case of Desmond Trotter, a black political activist accused of the murder of an American tourist. This latter group produced materials both in Dominica and in London in their successful efforts to overturn the death sentence passed on Trotter.
Part of the British Windward Islands Federation until 1958, Grenada then joined the West Indies (Federation) and when that dissolved in 1962 was made part of a further federation comprising Great Britain's remaining East Caribbean dependencies. After achieving "associated statehood" in 1967 it finally became independent in 1974, with Eric Gairy of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) becoming the country's first Prime Minister. The emergence in the 1970s of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) posed a challenge to Gairy that was met by an increasingly authoritarian approach. The NJM took power in a 1979 coup and established a people's revolutionary government (PRG) with Maurice Bishop at its head, but differences between Bishop and the more radical wing of the government led by Bernard Coard led to the death of the revolutionary leader in an armed fracas and the subsequent invasion of the island by the United States. Elections following the invasion saw the return of the New National Party (NNP), and this party or offshoots of it have governed the country ever since. The materials held here concentrate almost exclusively on the invasion of Grenada by the United States in 1983 and the situation of those convicted in relation to the death of People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) leader Maurice Bishop just prior to this. Foremost amongst the defendants at this trial was Bishop's former deputy prime minister Bernard Coard and his wife and fellow ex-Central Committee member Phyllis Coard.
The Solomon Islands became independent in July 1978.
Cyprus was ruled by Britain between 1878 and 1960, first under 'lease' from the Ottoman Empire and then as a colony after 1914. A growing desire amongst the Greek Cypriot majority for 'enosis' or union with Greece culminated in an armed uprising between 1955 and 1959. The Turkish Cypriot minority naturally opposed enosis and instead favoured partition, a solution unacceptable to the majority. Agreement on independence made Cyprus a republic with minority rights protected by the constitution, these accords being guaranteed by Greece and Turkey as well as Britain. Continuing intercommunal violence and military posturing by the two 'mother' countries culminated in the 1974 Athens-inspired coup and subsequent Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus. Most of the materials held here deal with the events of 1974 and arguments over how to resolve the division of the island, although the significant collections of EDEK and AKEL materials show the complicated position of the Greek Cypriot left, who were hostile to the Greek military junta and also suspicious of Cyprus being used as a pawn by NATO due to its strategic importance.
Dominica passed between French and British hands several times in its colonial history and this, coupled with the early emergence of land-owning ex-slaves meant the island developed along different political lines to the big sugar colonies such as Barbados and Jamaica. By 1961 a Democratic Labour Party government had been elected, and it was this party which led Dominica first to associated statehood in 1967 and then to full independence eleven years later. 1980 saw the election of the Caribbean's first female prime minister, Eugenia Charles (Dominica Freedom Party), and although she had to survive coup attempts during her fifteen-year premiership subsequent peaceful transfers of power appeared to indicate that Dominica's political system was still functioning.
Part of the British Windward Islands Federation until 1958, Grenada then joined the West Indies (Federation) and when that dissolved in 1962 was made part of a further federation comprising Great Britain's remaining East Caribbean dependencies. After achieving "associated statehood" in 1967 it finally became independent in 1974, with Eric Gairy of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) becoming the country's first Prime Minister. The emergence in the 1970s of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) posed a challenge to Gairy that was met by an increasingly authoritarian approach. The NJM took power in a 1979 coup and established a people's revolutionary government (PRG) with Maurice Bishop at its head, but differences between Bishop and the more radical wing of the government led by Bernard Coard led to the death of the revolutionary leader in an armed fracas and the subsequent invasion of the island by the United States. Elections following the invasion saw the return of the New National Party (NNP), and this party or offshoots of it have governed the country ever since.
The post-war period in Guyana saw the emergence of the parties and characters that were to dominate its political scene both before and after independence in 1966. Cheddi Jagan formed the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 1950 and was joined in this new entity by Forbes Burnham. The two were the emerging leaders of the Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese repectively, and as such gave the PPP a formidable electoral base which translated into their 1953 election victory. Despite the dismissal of this government after less than six months by the British and the Burnham's departure to form the People's National Congress (PNC) the PPP continued to hold majorities after the 1957 and 1961 polls. Further labour unrest in 1964 led to the amendment of the constitution under British auspices to allow for the introduction of proportional representation, and under this new system the PNC and conservative United Force (UF) were able to form a government after elections the same year. Burnham was to remain Prime Minister until his death in 1985, overseeing the transition to independence and governing increasingly autocratically in the face of accusations from the PPP and the emergent Working People's Alliance (WPA) of election-rigging and human rights abuses.
Though some of the material here does date back to the latter period of British rule, the majority is from the 1950s-1980s and is concerned with the India that emerged from independence and partition . The ramifications of the circumstances in which the new republic was born are present in much of the party literature here, in terms of the relationship with Pakistan, the struggle between secular and non-secular ideas of the state and the attempt to maintain a position of non-alignment during the Cold War. Other recurring themes are the issues of the dominant role of the Congress Party (with all the subsequent implications for Indian democracy that this entailed), and the seemingly intractable problem of widespread poverty. Also of interest are the materials dealing with the communist parties, with much early debate centring on the contradictions of theoretically anti-parliamentary organisations operating in the democratic sphere - brought to the fore in Kerala with the formation of the first elected communist ministry in the world in 1959 - and later arguments dealing with the repositioning of these still powerful parties given the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.
The majority of materials in the collection here date from the period between the founding of the first pan-Kenyan nationalist movement in 1944 and the the granting of independence in 1963 following the election victory of Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya African National Union (KANU). Both the major African and colonialist parties are represented, with the issues covered including the proposed East African Federation, the border dispute with Somalia and of course the Mau Mau uprising of 1952-1960. Of particular interest is the debate concerning the future constitution of the country as it became clear that the days of rule from Britain were numbered. The predominantly white parties hoped to secure the representation of minorities in government, while the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) promoted a federal structure in the hope that this would prevent the strongly Kikuyu KANU from using their likely control of central government to dominate other tribal groupings. A smaller number of items also cover Kenya's consolidation as a pro-Western one-party state after 1963 and the opposition first to Kenyetta and later to his successor Daniel Arap Moi.
The majority of the material held here relates to the first two elections held under full adult suffrage in Lesotho. In 1965 the Basotho National Party (BNP) under the leadership of Leabua Jonathan won the first of these amidst accusations of interference on its behalf by the Catholic Church and the South African government. Independence followed in 1966, but when the opposition Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) appeared to have won the elections in 1970 Jonathan annulled them and suspended parliamentary government, remaining in power until deposed by the first of a series of military coups in 1986.
Montserrat is a self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom, having previously been a member of the West Indies Federation from 1958-1962.
The politics of the areas now known as Malaysia have been dominated since independence by ethnic divisions which have permeated the economic as well as the cultural and political spheres. While the Malays form a majority of the population under the British they were largely excluded from urban roles and economic ownership in favour of the large Chinese minority, while the Indian community largely worked in serflike conditions on the peninsula's rubber plantations. The Federation of Malaya was created in 1952, and the aforementioned differences were initially resolved by the formation of the Alliance Party comprising the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the Malayan - later Malaysian - Chinese Association (MCA) and the Malayan - later Malaysian - Indian Congress (MIC). This multi-racial umbrella organisation presided over independence in 1957 and the merger with Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah which created the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 (Singapore left in 1965). Yet subsuming potentially antagonistic groups inside the Alliance almost guaranteed that the challenge to one-party rule would draw on the dissatisfaction of ethnic groups which no longer felt the original parties were representing their interests, and so new parties emerged in opposition, most notably the largely Malay Parti Islam-Se-Malaysia (PAS) and the predominantly Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP). The advances of the latter in the 1969 elections led to communal rioting and the two-year suspension of parliament, which was dominated upon its recall by a new coalition, the Barisan Nasional, based upon the Alliance but with a greater Malay dominance. This party has remained in power since, presiding over the impressive Malaysian growth of the New Economic Policy period of the 1970s and 1980s but also over a democratic process which looked increasingly unlikely to offer any possibility of a change of government.
Formerly a Dutch colony, the Netherlands Antilles became a self-governing country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954. With reference to the Netherlands Antilles, 'Windward Islands' (Bovenwindse Eilanden) means the north-eastern islands of Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius, as opposed to the south-western islands of Aruba (which seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986), Bonaire and Curaçao. Note that, confusingly, the Dutch 'Windward Islands' are considered to be part of the Leeward Island group, not the Windward Island group, in British English usage.
Since achieving independence in 1960 Nigeria has oscillated between periods of civilian and military rule. From the start the fact that that the three main parties (the Northern People's Congress (NPC), the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Action Group (AG)) largely represented particular ethnic and linguistic groups made for a volatile political environment. Two coups in 1966 led to a suspension of electoral politics until 1979, when the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) led by Alhaji Shehu Usman Shagari took power following victory in the elections of that year. The result was repeated four years later, but against a background of vote-rigging allegations the military overthrew the government. Despite changes of leader, limited tolerance of political parties and aborted elections it was not until the 1999 polls that under Olusegun Obasanjo of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) the country returned to civilian administration. The vast majority of the holdings date from the periods when party politics was tolerated, and include regional and seperatist materials occasioned by the religious, tribal and linguistic divisions that have dogged Nigeria since independence. Another recurring theme is that of economic crisis and foreign exploitation, relected particularly in items originating from left-wing and nationalist political parties and in the small amount of trade union material. Besides items produced in Nigeria itself there are also a significant number of newsletters and pamphlets originating from the United Kingdom branches of parties and organisations, most of them dating from the periods of military rule.
The British colonies in the Caribbean were united in the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962; most of the members sought independence separately after the union collapsed.
Located in northwestern Borneo, Sarawak, which had been under British protection since the 19th century, became a British colony in July 1946. It joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963.
Following the end of the First World War, the formerly German portion of Samoa was administered by New Zealand until it became independent as Western Samoa in 1962. In July 1997, the word Western was officially dropped from the country's name and it is now known as Samoa. The eastern portion of the Samoan islands, known as American Samoa, remains an unincorporated territory of the USA.
Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla became a separate British dependency in 1962 following the dissolution of the British West Indies federation, and an associated state in 1967. In 1980 Anguilla, which had long proclaimed its independence from the other two islands, was legally reconstituted as a dependency in its own right and in 1983 Saint Kitts and Nevis as it was then known became independent.
Niue has been a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand since 1974.
During the period covered by these holdings the islands now known as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines passed from being part of the Windward Islands colonial group (up to 1958) through membership of the British West Indies federation (1958-1962) to being first a separate dependency (1962), then an associated state (1969) and finally independent in 1979.
The majority of the materials held here originate from the United National Independence Party (UNIP), founded by Kenneth Kaunda who became Zambia's first Prime Minister following its independence in 1964. This preponderance can be explained by the fact that UNIP was in office continously until 1991, and that from 1972 to 1990 opposition parties were banned. Following the repeal of this law the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) of Frederick Chiluba were able to win the 1991 elections and unseat Kaunda. Many of the items are speeches or articles written by Kaunda himself, and chart Zambia's attempts to free itself of Western control, economically as well as politically. There are also small quantities of trades union and pressure group material.
Having been a self-governing colony since 1923 ruled by a white minority Southern Rhodesia became part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953 along with Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi). The tensions between the white settlers of Southern Rhodesia who dominated the federal government, and the northern territories, where the cause of African nationalism was more advanced, led to the breakup of the Federation in 1963 and the independence of Zambia and Malawi. Southern Rhodesia, governed since 1962 by the right-wing Rhodesian Front (RF), remained under British rule as a consequence of the policy of NIBMAR (No Independence Before Majority African Rule). This was rejected by the RF which in 1963 had banned the two main African political parties, the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) led by Joshua Nkomo and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) of Ndabaningi Sithole. Instead, folowing their clean sweep of the European legislative assembly seats in 1965 the RF and their new leader Ian Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), resulting in largely ineffective Commonwealth and later UN sanctions. British attempts to resolve the crisis continued, but the 1971 Anglo-Rhodesian Settlement Proposals were reported to have been rejected by 97% of the Africans polled by the Pearce Commission sent the following year to examine their acceptability, and in fact served only to mobilise and energise African resistance. The African National Council (ANC) led by Bishop Muzorewa became a permanent political party, while guerrilla activities by ZANU and ZAPU intensified. Political and military strategies for the achievement of majority rule continued to be pursued by various African nationalist leaders throughtout the 1970s. A split in ZANU led to the emergence of Robert Mugabe as its leader in place of Sithole, assisted by Mugabe's control of the ZANU's military wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). Meanwhile the independence of Angola and Mozambique shifted the balance of power in southern Africa as a whole as well as that of the Zimbabwean armed struggle, with the new Mozambiquen government providing support for ZANU and ZANLA whilst Zambia provided a base for ZAPU. On the domestic front a series of shifting alliances developed, with Mugabe and Nkomo placing their organisations under the umbrella of Muzorewa's ANC, only to withdraw in 1975-1976 and announce the formation of the Patriotic Front (PF) comprising just ZANU and ZAPU. Following this split the ANC became the United African National Council, whilst Sithole, who had also briefly joined Muzorewa in the ANC left in 1977 to form the ANC (Sithole). The key distinction was that Muzorewa was prepared to make concessions in negotiations with Smith and the RF that Nkomo and Mugabe were not, and the OAU and the international community tended to see the Patriotic Front as more representative of African opinion than the UANC. Thus though the latter won the elections of 1979 and Muzorewa became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, the failure of the PF to participate forced all parties to return to the table, and following the Lancaster House talks new elections were held in 1980 under a constitution more amenable to Nkomo and Mugabe. ZANU and ZAPU contested the election seperately, and Mugabe's party's convincing win led to his becoming the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, the leadership of which country he has held ever since. The majority of the materials held here date from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and cover all of the main African and European parties, and all of the major issues alluded to here. A smaller proportion of the collection predates this period, and there are also a number of items from post-independence Zimbabawe.
By 1963 the British administration, struggling to maintain its grip on the port of Aden and the surrounding territories, had created a Federation in the hope that this would satisfy growing nationalist sentiment in the region. The ATUC pamphlet here rejects this development and instead calls for free elections which it anticipates will produce representatives committed to uniting the colony with the Yemen Arab Republic.
By the late nineteenth century trade union membership density in Australia was among the highest in the world and as a consequence attracted international interest from labour historians, most notably from Sidney and Beatrice Webb. By the mid 1970s over half of the workforce was unionised, a figure significantly greater than that for Britain, wherein many of Australia's principles had originated. The recognition by the union movement of the need for political represention had led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party, a British-style union-based organisation as distinct from the social democrat parties more prevalent in Europe. The relationship between the ALP and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is one of the major threads running through Australian union history, and significant material is held in this collection dealing with the Prices and Incomes Accord - the 1983 pact between the Labor Government of Bob Hawke and the unions. Other items are concerned with individual unions and particular labour disputes, including the wildcat strikes by Sydney Opera House construction workers in the late 1970s, and there are items indicating the stance of unions on single issues such as uranium mining, as well as posters and publicity material relecting on the movement itself and its history.
The Trinidad and Tobago labour movement was particularly significant in the 1960s and 1970s, the period from which most of the materials in this collection originate. Particularly well represented are the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union (OWTU), an organisation whose significance mirrored the importance of oil to the country's economy, and the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factories Workers Trade Union (ATSE/FWTU), who represented the largely East Indian sugar cane workers. Though Trinidad and Tobago was unusual in the Caribbean area in that unions tended not to affiliate to political parties, this is not to say that they did not involve themselves in politics - as shown here by the polemics issued by OWTU leader George Weekes against the ruling People's National Movement (PNM), accused of selling out the workers. Also represented here are union federations, of which the most prominent were the Trinidad and Tobago Labour Congress and the Council of Progressive Trade Unions, and many smaller organisations. Following the economic downturn of the 1980s and the opening up of the previously state-dominated economy, union membership and influence declined, but a significant proportion of the workforce continues to be unionised and materials continue to be collected.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies was founded in 1949 to promote advanced study of the Commonwealth. The Institute offers opportunities for graduate study, houses several research projects and offers a full conference and seminar programme.
This small and disparate collections of material reflects more on the absence of powerful pressure groups from the Barbadian political scene than on the importance of the issues, such as the value of the work ethic, which are being espoused.
The majority of the materials held here relate to the 1974 coup in Cyprus and the subsequent Turkish military intervention. Both Greek and Turkish Cypriot expatriate groups are represented, and there is also older material arguing for an independent Cyprus.
Although democracy in India soon brought forth a huge range of political parties Western-style pressure groups were slower to emerge. Those groups featured here are concerned with the predominant issues of the 1970s: the growth of communalism, India's foreign policy and the social and political crisis which culminated in the 1975 state of emergency.
The materials held here reflect the growth in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s of pressure and interest groups, for whom the major issues were the rights of women and the Maori people, apartheid and nuclear weapons. These last two constitute the majority of the materials in this collection, with the anti-apartheid movement coalescing (to form HART : The New Zealand anti-apartheid movement) over the issue of South African sporting links and producing country-wide demonstrations and disorder during the 1981 Springbok tour. The strength of anti-nuclear feeling led to the nuclear weapon-free-zone movement in which various areas (soon constituting a majority of the country) declared themselves to be such zones, and contributed strongly to New Zealand's de facto expulsion from the ANZUS alliance in 1985 after the refusal by the Labour government to allow entry to the USS Buchanan when the United States refused to confirm that the vessel was free of nuclear weapons. Other less prominent groups include those representing the interests of farmers and civil rights organisations protesting against the alleged erosion of those rights under the Muldoon National government (1975-1984).
The bulk of this collection dates from the period in the history of Namibia (formerly South West Africa) after 1977 when the UN, the Western Contact Group (including France, West Germany, Canda, the United States and Great Britain) and the front-line states increasingly sought to bring about a resolution to the ongoing struggle between SWAPO and apartheid South Africa's armed forces in the country. Thus the materials can be roughly divided into those emanating from groups representing the German-speaking minority, such as the Interessengemeinschaft Deutschsprachiger Südwester (IG), and those campaigning on behalf of organisations opposed to South African rule, like the Namibia Support Committee and the SWAPO Women's Solidarity Campaign. Both sought to interpret and influence the discussions as they progressed. Some of the items are particularly interesting for the connections drawn between uranium mining in Namibia and the 1984 miners' strike in Great Britain.
The pressure group materials held here vary from labour market analyses produced by the Caribbean Employers' Federation to broad critiques of Trinidad and Tobago's political and economic system from a variety of groups, including the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and the New Beginning Movement (NBM). The majority of the materials date from the 1970s and 1980s, the period in which the ruling People's National Movement increasingly lost credibility with civil society.
The materials held here mainly originate from groups opposed to the regime of Idi Amin, based both in Uganda and abroad. They include the National Resistance Movement (NRA), which later went on to take power in 1986 following the failure of Obote's Uganda People's Congress (UPC) to improve the economic and human rights situation in the country.
Despite attempts to reconstitute the administration of the colony and its surrounding protectorate as the Federation of South Arabia, direct British control required an increasingly large army presence in the face of national armed movements and in 1967 Aden was abandoned to the forces of the National Liberation Front. The materials here date from the mid-1960s and relate the trade union-based PSP's conflicts with the British authorities and contacts with left-leaning supporters in Britain itself.
In the course of the 1960s three major guerrilla organisations emerged in opposition to Portuguese rule over Angola. The MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola) had its headquarters in Zambia and was Marxist in outlook whilst the FNLA (Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola) was based in the Congo. The other group, founded in 1966 under the leadership of Jonas Savimbi, was UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola). Materials from all of these parties are held here, relating primarily to their roles in the liberation struggle (before the 1974 coup in Portugal hastened its departure from its colonies), but also dealing with their part in the civil wars and repeated foreign interventions which have subsequently dogged Angola.
Though Antigua and Barbuda had to wait until 1981 for full independence within the Commonwealth there had been a multi-party political system since the islands were given associated statehood status in 1967. Prior to this politics had been dominated by the Antigua Trades and Labour Union and its political offspring, the Antigua Labour Party, but a multi-party system now emerged with groups such as the Antigua People's Party and the Progressive Labour Movement splitting off from the ALP. Despite this the latter has only once been out of power, and with Lester Bird succeeding his father Vere Cornwall as prime minister there has also been a dynastic element to Antigua's governance. The effect that these two factors have had on Antigua's democracy and the various attempts to create a viable alternative party are the major themes of the materials in this collection.
In 1901 the previously self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania came together to form the Commonwealth of Australia, and the struggle for authority between these states (and the later admitted Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory) and the federal centre has remained an issue ever since. Other issues that have dominated the post-war political scene include debates over republicanism, the perennial emergence of third party forces to challenge the hegemony of the ALP and the Liberal-National Party coalition and the fear of the other, most often evoked by immigration but also by the perceived threat of communism pre-1989. Possibly the most controversial episode of the recent political past was the 1975 Whitlam dismissal crisis, which provoked still unresolved arguments over the constitution and the relationship between the House of Representatives and the Senate. All of these issues are raised, referred to and discussed within the materials here held.