Record Details

CollectionRoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS)
NGORoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS)
RepositoryRoyal Asiatic Society
DescriptionThe Royal Asiatic Society holds minutes of preliminary meetings relating to the establishment of the Society, minutes of general meetings and meetings of the RAS Council, the Committee of Correspondence, the Committee of Agriculture and Commerce, the Oriental Translation Committee and a register of donations and copies of correspondence. There are also collections of loose correspondence and other archival papers, most of which is uncatalogued. Given the length of the Society?s history, the amount of archival material is surprisingly small. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that the Society has moved several times and perhaps discarded material each time. There are also lists of members from the foundation of the Society to the present day, published first in the journal and then separately.
Access RightsThe volumes of minutes, which refer particularly to the 19th century, are available for bona fide researchers, and a small amount of material listed on handlists. Material which is completely uncatalogued is not available.
Coverage1823 (founding of the RAS) -
Size of CollectionThere is about 1 metre of bound volumes of minutes of committees and general meetings, and perhaps 15 boxes of other material, mostly loose papers, uncatalogued.
Finding Aids/CataloguesThe Royal Asiatic Society don?t have a catalogue of the archival material. They have a list of the volumes of minutes of various committees, and a small amount of the loose papers are listed on brief handlists, but the majority is uncatalogued.
Reference of Catalogue
Additional informationThere are paper of or relating to the Royal Asiatic Society in the British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (Mss Eur E223/309- dates 1917-1939). Source: online file-level catalogue; no further details are available from this catalogue. There is correspondence relating to the Society in Private Papers held at the same repository (see online catalogue). There are also correspondence and papers on the Royal Asiatic Society, 1859-1912 in the papers of John Ferguson at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (see online catalogue of his papers). The papers of an early president of the Society, Donald James Mackay, have been placed at the School of Oriental and African Studies. They may (or may not) contain papers relating to the Society (online catalogue). The same remarks apply to the papers of another of the Society's presidents (1952-1955), Sir Ralph Lilley (online catalogue), and one director and president (1940-1963), Sir Richard Winstedt (online catalogue). There are many more references to the Royal Asiatic Society in A2A and AIM25.
Source of InformationNRA; contacts with RAS (April 2007)
Last Edited at25/04/2007 12:54:37

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