Papers of William Harold Ingrams and Sir William Newton

The collection mainly consists of papers (correspondence, memoranda, telegrams, despatches, etc.) relating to Ingrams' administrative service in Mauritius, Gibraltar and Africa. There are also some papers relating to Malaya and the West Indies; press cuttings about the death of Queen Salote in Tonga in 1965; articles collected by Ingrams about the West Indies, India, Ceylon, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaya, the Philippines and Korea; and a manuscript narrative about the loss of the East India Company's ship "Cabalva" in 1818.

Also included in the collection are letters and documents, 1863-1915, of Sir William Newton which relate to his time in Mauritius. There are letters to Newton from Colonial Secretaries of Mauritius (Sir Graham Bower, Sir Hubert Jerningham and Sir Charles King-Harman) and from Governors of Mauritius (Sir Cavendish Boyle and Sir Charles Bruce). Other correspondents include Newton's son, Henry Bertie, Prosper d'Epinay, Sir John Henniker Heaton and his son, Henry Thurstan Holland, Jules Lafitte, and Justin H. McCarthy.

William Harold Ingrams, OBE (1933), CMG (1939), was born in Shrewsbury, England, on the 3 February 1897. After serving in World War I with the King's Shropshire Light Infantry (1914-1918), he joined the Colonial Service as Assistant District Commissioner in Zanzibar (1919), later becoming 2nd Assistant Secretary (1925). In 1927 he was appointed Assistant Colonial Secretary in Mauritius and for periods during 1932 and 1933 was also Acting Colonial Secretary. He was transferred to Aden in 1934 to take up the post of Political Officer (1934-ca.1937). Ingrams left Aden for four years when he was appointed British Resident Adviser in Mukalla, Saudi Arabi (1937-1940); he returned to Aden in 1940 and held the posts of Acting Governor (1940), Chief Secretary to the Government of Aden (1940-1942), and Resident Adviser of the Hadhramaut States and British Agent in the Eastern Aden Protectorate (1942-1945).

Between 1945 and 1947 Ingrams was on secondment as Assistant Secretary of the Allied Control Commission for Germany (British Element). There followed posts as Chief Commissioner of the Northern Territories in the Gold Coast (1947-1948), Adviser on Overseas Information at the Colonial Office (1950-1954), and Editor of Commonwealth Challenge and If you ask me (1952-1966). Ingrams was also involved with missions to Gibraltar (1949), Hong Kong (1950), and Uganda (1956). His final post before retiring was in the Joint Research Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1966-1968).

Ingrams was awarded the Class IV Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar (1927), the Lawrence Memorial Medal (awarded jointly with his wife in 1939), the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1940), and the Burton Memorial Medal (1943). He died on the 9 December 1973.

Sir William Newton, Kt (1905), KC, was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple in 1863 and served as a Member of the Council in Mauritius. He died on the 6 July 1915.

Bodleian reader's ticket required.

Collection level description created by Marion Lowman, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

The library holds a card index of all manuscript collections in its reading room and a handlist is also available for this collection.

Listed as no. 22 in Manuscript Collections (Africana and non-Africana) in Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Supplementary accessions to the end of 1977 and Cumulative Index, compiled by Wendy S. Byrne (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1978).

No reproduction or publication of personal papers without permission. Contact the library in the first instance.

Deposited with the Oxford Colonial Records Project.