Manuscripts and documents in the British Isles relating to South-East Asia (The Wainwright-Matthews Guide)

Abstract

In 1965 the School of Oriental and African Studies published A Guide to Western manuscripts and documents in the British Isles relating to South and South-East Asia, compiled by M.D. Wainwright and Noel Matthews under the general supervision of J.D. Pearson. This Guide in its 471 double- column pages attempted to give such information as was available on collections of unprinted or unpublished documents that could be discovered in all libraries, archive depositories or record offices, and private muniment rooms in the United Kingdom. and the Republic of Ireland. Only one exception was made to this general rule, the India Office Library, about whose S.E.A. collections more will be said later. MSS. and documents relating to the areas with which the Guide was concerned were discovered in the British Museum and the national libraries of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, in the libraries of universities in the four countries and in those of many learned societies and other associations in the capitals and provincial cities, in the Public Record Office in London and those of Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as in the county record offices of England and Wales.