Aims and objectives
The St Helena Archives holds records from the island’s first years as an English colony to the present. The earliest documents span the East Company period (1673-1834), with subsequent records documenting the period under direct British Government rule. The material was created after 1834, covering the transition to direct Crown rule, then the key decades of the middle to later 19th century. While much of the high-level correspondence is replicated in the UK National Archives, there are also local-level materials including official records, private correspondence, maps, land titles, legal proceedings, bill posters, local newspapers as well as unpublished historical research. This latter material exists nowhere else. The extensive series of colonial secretary’s letters contain intra-island correspondence from both government officials and private individuals. Registers of births, deaths, marriages and baptisms are included, and newspapers made their first appearance in 1845.
