Records of Emigration Departments

Division within CO

1814-1927

Records of Emigration Departments relating to emigration from Britain to the colonies.

Records of the Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia, the agent general for emigration, the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission and the Emigration Commission are in CO 386. Correspondence of the Emigration Department and earlier Colonial Office correspondence relating to emigration is in CO 384, with registers from 1850 in CO 428. Entry books of out-letters relating to emigration to 1871 are in CO 385, with registers of out-letters from 1872 in CO 485. Some registers of correspondence relating to emigration to British North America are in CO 327. Correspondence of the Oversea Settlement Department is in CO 721, with registers in CO 791 and CO 792

There are no records for 1904-1917.

For later records see Records created or inherited by the Dominions Office, and of the Commonwealth Relations and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices,

Public Record(s)

English

• Colonial Office, Emigration Department, 1879-1894
• Colonial Office, General and Emigration Department, 1894-1896
• Colonial Office, Oversea Settlement Department, 1919-1925

9 series

Topics

International

Migration

Australia and Pacific

Americas

After the dissolution of the Emigration Commission in 1878 an Emigration Department was set up within the Colonial Office in 1879. In 1894 it was merged with the General Department and in 1896 abolished altogether. Meanwhile in 1886 an Emigrants' Information Office had been established to provide impartial information about emigration. It was under Colonial Office supervision but had a voluntary committee of management.

Following the First World War the government began to exercise closer supervision over emigration; the voluntary committee was replaced in 1918 by the Government Emigration Committee, which was renamed the Oversea Settlement Committee the following year. At the same time the Emigrants' Information Office became the Oversea Settlement Department; after 1925 it was a branch of the Dominions Office.