General Records of the Dominions Office, 1834-1963

Component identifier:

Fonds DO

Extent:

9069 items

Content Summary:

Correspondence and records relating to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State with that of the South African High Commission and Southern Rhodesia. Covers diverse range of topics including trade relations, migration, atomic energy, Coronation of George VI, and expeditions to the Antarctic.

DO 35 is the largest Series filmed by the Australian Joint Copying Project, originally comprising 590 reels of microfilm. This Series is a continuation of records of the Dominions Office, immediately following CO 532. Please note that although DO 35 is one Series, it has been split into seven components for ease of delivery.

Records until 1930 conform to the traditional Colonial arrangement, with files bound annually according to provenance (despatches, offices, institutions, individuals). The despatches were organised on a geographical basis. Files on a particular Dominion were not kept together but were dispersed throughout the Series. Where date ranges appear at the end of a file description they have usually been taken from the file cover. Readers should note that there are sometimes papers dated before or after the given dates on the files. File numbers are ranges only. Not all files will necessarily be present in a given number range.

From 1930-1936 registration was purely numerical, blocks of numbers being assigned in advance to different countries or subject: e.g. 4000 onwards to Constitutional Affairs, Imperial Conferences etc; 6000 onwards to Foreign Affairs, League of Nations etc. Groups were subdivided into various subordinate subjects by means of numbers (starting from 1) placed after the appropriate letter.

This procedure was further modified on 1 January 1947 when each subject group was renumbered from 2000. The same prefix letters were retained and the following list indicates the subject matter allocated to each file series:

A. Aviation and air passages.

B. Naval, Military and Air. (Personnel and Misc).

C. Constitutional.

D. Defence questions of policy etc.

E. Establishment, mails, privileges etc; UK and Dominion Trade Commissioners. Service Dominion Government Appointments in the UK.

F. Foreign Affairs - Preparation of Treaties etc, Polar matters.

G. Dominion Internal affairs and Dominion Government Appointment with the Empire, other than UK.

H. Honours, Medals Ceremonial. Flags Loyal Messages.

I. Prisoners of War, Internees etc.

J. Dominion legislation; External Application.

K. Diplomatic and Consular Appointments (other than Eire).

L. Application of Foreign Treaties, Agreements and Conventions to Dominion Governments (other than Trade).

M. Migration questions, rehabilitation in Dominions on demobilisation.N. Newfoundland.

O. Finance, Currency, Exchange control.

P. Passports, Nationality and Aliens.

Q. Communications, code and cypher questions.

R. Southern Rhodesia

S. Shipping and sea passages.

T. Commercial relations, commodities etc.

U. United Nations Organisation.

V. Information, cultural and educational; broadcasting and press.

W. Whaling, Social Services, Conferences, Copyright.

X. Eire. (Including Eire diplomatic appointments).

Y. B. B. and S. (Basutoland, Bechuanaland Protectorate and Swaziland).

Z. Miscellaneous.

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