Services and General Department Records

Apart from the records actually generated by the Services and General Department, L/S& G includes the files of the related India Office Establishment Branch (1921-47) and a collection of personal files transferred to London by the Government of India at the time of Independence. The principal subjects dealt with in the period 1924-47 are:. General management of the main civil services in India including the following services - Archaeological, Audit and Accounts, Bengal Pilot, Customs, Ecclesiastical (from 1941), Education, Forest, Income Tax, Indian Civil (ICS), Irrigation (from 1926), Judicial, Meteorological, Police, Post and Telegraph recruitment (from 1926), Railways (from 1926), Survey of India, Wireless Telegraphy recruitment (from 1926), Zoology. Unless specified above, the records cover pay, allowances, leave and pensions, cadres, appointments and recruitment, organisation, conduct and memorial rules; The India Office establishment as a whole, covering all staffing and personnel questions, and direct supervision of the following particular sections of the Office: Library, Records, Telegraph and Mails, Surveyor, Typists, Head Office Keeper and Messengers, Housekeeper, Printer; General policy (as distinct from purely personnel aspects) for archaeology, copyright, education, zoology; The Department was not concerned with recruitment for the provincial civil service in India, nor for other special posts for which the High Commission in London was responsible from 1920 onwards.

References IOR/L/SG/1, IOR/L/SG/2 and IOR/L/SG/4 are not used; references IOR/L/SG/5 and IOR/L/SG/9 are to materials that are not yet listed.

For detailed records of leave, pay and pensions, see IOR/L/AG. For personnel and establishment questions relating to the Indian Medical Service, see IOR/L/MIL. For personnel and establishment questions relating to the Political Service, see IOR/L/PS.

Available for research unless otherwise stated

The Services and General Department was created in April 1924 primarily (but not exclusively) to centralise and co-ordinate responsibility for all kinds of personnel and establishment questions which had previously been divided up between several departments e.g. Public and Judicial, Commerce and Revenue, Financial. In October 1926, the Public Works Department was abolished and the Services and General Department took over recruitment and services questions regarding railway and engineering personnel. After 1947, the work of the Department was transferred to the Services Department of the Commonwealth Relations Office.