The East India Company collection forms a coherent sub-set of the St Helena Government Archive as a whole. It encapsulates the entirety of the St Helena-based historic record for the EIC period, to the extent that it survives. For the formative, late 17th and early 18th century period of the colony, the documents are largely confined to the records of the island's governing council, as transmitted to the EIC's Court of Directors in London, and the corresponding communications received from the Court of Directors. The island-generated material minutes the sessions of the governing council; dealing with day-to-day affairs of administration, they record all aspects of the colony's life, from laws, finance, land-grants and military matters, to the daily lives and experiences of the colonists (both free and enslaved) who occupied this remote outpost. As the 18th century progressed and the colony became both larger and more securely established, the amount and scope of the documents increases, taking in subjects such as wills, audits of land and property. This expansion in the absolute volume of material continued into the 19th century. An important 19th century element of the collection is that covering the period of Napoleon's exile on St Helena (1815-1821); another highly significant element concerns the emancipation of the island's enslaved population. Finally, some of the latest correspondence addresses the transition of St Helena from EIC possession to Crown Colony.
Extent: 324 volumes; 1 document.
Custodial history: The St Helena Government Archive was established in 1962. The first salaried custodian of records was appointed in 1966. The records of several government departments were deposited in the archive between 1962 and 1966. The more recent continuation of these records remain in the custody of their originating departments. Some more recent documents have been (and continue to be) deposited, for example, census returns and newspapers.
Arrangement: The present bound volumes are collations of multiple items, following a chronological system. For many of the earliest volumes of EIC records the pages have been pasted into pages within a manufactured ledger (19th-century). These volumes have recently been rebound - and thus the spine and covers are substantially newer than the original pages and the text block into which they are pasted.
