Heritage Collections

The RSAA’s original library was not systematically collected, but assembled from the donations of members, according to their personal interests. The library held an eclectic mixture of books. Some were of real value and significance, and these have been retained with the possibility of digitisation. The great majority of the library comprised mid-twentieth-century publications that are widely available in both specialist and general libraries. These are being sold, and the proceeds will be used in support of the Society’s new online library and the digitised collections.

The RSAA institutional and heritage archives are a unique and varied range of material from the mid-19th century to the present day including a number of personal papers, notably from the explorer Colonel Reginald Schomberg; thirty-four unpublished letters from Sir Aurel Stein; and the Shakespear family archive with their Central Asian and Indian connections. The original decree from the Khan of Khiva releasing 416 Russian prisoners into the care of Sir Richmond Shakespear in 1840 is of particular interest.

There are over 1,000 maps covering the Middle East, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula, Transcaspia and Russia. General Sir Samuel Browne’s own annotated map of Afghanistan used at the start of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878) is one of the collection’s highlights, as is a sketch map by T E Lawrence.

The RSAA’s photographic collection contains images ranging from late-nineteenth century views of Bokhara; Sir Francis Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet (1904); St John Philby’s pictures of Mecca and Medina in the 1930s; pioneering overland car journeys to Baghdad, and rare photographs of Yezidi and Assyrian tribes in the twentieth century.

The Michael Stokes Postcard Collection contains over 6,000 cards of Indian scenes that would have been familiar to soldiers serving during the British Raj – cantonments, railway stations, barracks, camps, bazaars, docks, churches, church parades and cemeteries.

There is a small but select number of Indian miniatures include paintings from Rajputana (present day Rajasthan) and part of a Ragmala series from the Bundi school.