Catalogue description Colonial Office: Niger and West Africa Frontier Force and West Africa Frontier Force Original Correspondence

Bound volumes arranged chronologically within the following subject headings: Despatches (letters of the governors), Offices (letters of government departments and other organisations) and Individuals (arranged alphabetically), and with Despatches divided according to West African colony. Each volume with a contents list. Part of the correspondence for 1926 is arranged in subject files.

The Niger and West Africa Frontier Force, known from 1900 as the West Africa Frontier Force and from 1918 as the Royal West Africa Frontier Force, was raised locally in 1897 to protect the frontiers of the British protectorates in West Africa against the French. It was paid by the imperial government, and officered by the British Army. From 1927 the administration of the unit was brought together with that of the King's African Rifles in a new Military Branch within the Colonial Office. Papers relating to the two forces were then registered and kept together.