Where to find material on Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, 1880–1980, in the libraries, record offices, museums and churches between Lancaster and Chester.
Each row is an archive, ordered by the extent of its West African holdings. The squares show the themes Paul Robinson recorded and the kinds of material held. Architecture and urbanism, one of the survey's starting themes, appears in only two archives: built-environment material is likely held inside the trading-company, mission and medical collections, but it is not described that way.
The companies, people, missions and trades that recur across the survey, linked to the archives that hold their records. The story of one firm is often split between several institutions: Elder Dempster alone appears in four. Select a name to trace its connections; select an archive to open its record.
West Africa in the Archives was a three-month scoping project, carried out between May and June 2022, to find out how much material on West Africa between 1880 and 1980 is held in the archives of North West England. West Africa was taken to mean the former British colonies of Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, with neighbouring Cameroon, Senegal, Mali and Niger also considered. The starting themes were history, heritage, city design, planning, health, architecture and the making of cities.
Thirty archives were identified at the outset, mainly in and around Liverpool but reaching to Manchester, Lancaster and Chester. The list grew to 48 as the work went on. Each was visited in person over twelve field trips, some twice, and recorded on a standard fiche: location, access, finding aids, and the presence, extent and type of relevant material. Two were assessed remotely after advising that they held little or nothing.
Each archive is graded by the extent of its West African material, on a five-step scale: major, substantial, moderate, limited, and little or none. The grade describes how much relevant material the survey found, judged on the type, theme and quantity seen. It says nothing about the quality or importance of the archive itself, and is open to revision as collections are explored in more detail. Seven archives hold major collections; each has substantial material across several types and themes.
Details of access, opening hours and contacts are as recorded in 2022 and may have changed: check with each archive before visiting. Quantities are approximate linear metres of relevant material. Contact names and photographs from the original survey records are not published here.
The survey also points to future work: deeper study of individual archives, material types and themes, and the people in the region who hold knowledge of West Africa in this period.