Dr Mandy Banton

Contact details

Name:

Dr Mandy Banton

Position/Fellowship type:

Senior Research Fellow

Fellowship term:

01-Sep-2009 to 30-Sep-2015

Institute:

Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Phone:

020 7862 8844

Email address:

mandy.banton@sas.ac.uk

Website:

http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/index.php?id=153

Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Colonies & Colonization, emigration & immigration, Contemporary History, Modern History

Regions:

Africa, England, United Kingdom

Summary of research interests and expertise:

Colonial Office supervision of the regulation of ‘free’ labour in the British Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently working on policy towards Africans liberated from slave ships, and settled as ‘apprentices’ in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, after British Parliamentary abolition of the trade in 1807.

As a former senior archivist at The National Archives of the UK I am an expert in the records of the British Colonial Office and have research interests in the administrative history of the Colonial Office, and in record-keeping there and in the colonial administrations.  I am now working on the background to the disposal of records of colonial governments at independence, as highlighted by the release of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 'migrated archive'.  See under publications.

I currently serve on the committee of the Society for Caribbean Studies, the Advisory Council of the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the advisory panel for Legacies of British Slave-ownership Phase II.

Project summary relevant to Fellowship:

Policy towards Africans liberated from slave ships, and settled as ‘apprentices’ in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, after British Parliamentary abolition of the trade in 1807.

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
2013	'Record-keeping for good governance and accountability in the Colonial Office: an historical sketch', Essay for festschrift for Dr Anne Thurston, Director of the International Records Management Trust.  Forthcoming.
2013	‘Lost’ and ‘Found’: The concealment and release of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘migrated archives’ Journal articles Comma: International Journal on Archives. Forthcoming.
01-Jun-2012	‘Destroy? ‘Migrate’? Conceal? British Strategies for the Disposal of Sensitive Records of Colonial Administrations at Independence’ Journal articles The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Volume 40, Issue 2, pp. 321-335
01-Apr-2011	review of Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century by Sarah M S Pearsall (Oxford University Press, 2008) in Family and Community History, vol. 14/1, April 2011
2011	Administering the Empire, 1801-1968: a guide to the records of the Colonial Office in The National Archives of the UK revised and reprinted 2011
01-Oct-2011	review of The Creolisation of London Kinship: Mixed African-Caribbean and White British Extended Families, 1950–2003 by Elaine Bauer. Amsterdam University Press, 2010. Review in Family & Community History, Vol. 14/2, October 2011
01-Mar-2010	The Commonwealth at 60: a note on its history and some UK records in Newsletter of the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers, issue 46, Spring 2010
01-May-2010	review of the Oxford Companion to Black British History, edited by David Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones (Oxford University Press, 2007) in Family and Community History, 13/1, May 2010
01-Nov-2010	review of Untold Histories: Black people in England and Wales during the period of the British slave trade, c. 1660-1807, by Kathleen Chater (Manchester University Press, 2009) in Family and Community History, vol. 13/2, November 2010
2009	The 'Taint of Slavery': The Colonial Office and the Regulation of Free Labour in Keith Hamilton and Patrick Salmon (eds), Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807-1975 (Sussex Academic Press, 2009)
01-Oct-2009	'Expatriate' or 'Migrated' Archives: the role of the UK Archivist in Archives [the journal of the British Records Association], vol. xxxiv, no. 121, October 2009
2008	Administering the Empire, 1801-1968: A Guide to the Records of the Colonial Office in The National Archives of the UK London: Institute of Historical Research (2008, revised and reprinted 2011)

Relevant Events

Related events:

Date	Details
01-Jan-2012	‘Secrecy and Disclosure: Freedom of Information and the Commonwealth’. Organiser, with Dr Susan Williams
01-Jan-2011	The Colonial Office and the regulation of labour in the British Empire, 1838-1919 International Conference, 'Governing Empires: Central Administration and the Making of Colonial Policies in the late 19th Century', Instituto de Historia, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Madrid, 14-16 September 2011.
01-Jan-2011	Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations, and the End of Empire Organiser, with Dr Susan Williams and in collaboration with the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the Westminster branch of the United Nations Association and with the support of the Swedish Ambassador, of a one-day international conference held on 2 September 2001 to mark the 50th anniversary of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld's death.
01-Jan-2010	Free or unfree? Labour regulation in the 19th century Caribbean talk as part of a one-day workshop on researching the Caribbean, organised by Dr Gemma Romain, University of Newcastle, and held at The National Archives, 26 March 2010
01-Jan-2010	Sources for Caribbean studies in The National Archives of the UK paper given at Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference, University of Southampton, 7-9 July 2010
01-Jan-2009	'Constantly the subject of small struggles': the development of labour legislation in the British Empire during the 19th and 20th centuries paper given to Institute of Commonwealth Studies Research Seminar, 9 December 2009