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

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Details of CO 445
Reference: CO 445
Title: Colonial Office: Niger and West Africa Frontier Force and West Africa Frontier Force Original Correspondence
Description:

This series contains original correspondence relating to the Niger and West Africa Frontier Force to 1899, the West Africa Frontier Force from 1900, and the Royal West Africa Frontier Force from 1918.

Date: 1898-1926
Arrangement:

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.

Related material:

For later correspondence see CO 820

Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 69 volume(s)
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure
Unpublished finding aids:

For a register of correspondence, 1898-1899, see CO 581 For a register of correspondence, 1900-1926, see CO 641

Administrative / biographical background:

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.

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