A programme of digitisation of the RSAA’s heritage collections began in 2023 and is expected to be completed by 2028. While this work continues, it has unfortunately been necessary to close public access. Copies of material from the collections are also currently unavailable.
Heritage Collections
The Old RSAA Library
The RSAA’s original library was not systematically collected, but assembled from the donations of members, according to their personal interests.
The books of the late Hugh Leach OBE, a former soldier and diplomat, form a discrete collection within this larger library. Leach was the Historian of the RSAA and his collection has a particular emphasis on the Middle East.
The RSAA Archive
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present day including a number of personal papers, notably from the explorer Colonel Reginald Schomberg; thirty-four unpublished letters from Sir Aurel Stein; and the Shakespear family archive with their Central Asian and Indian connections.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.
Search our Catalogues
Our library and archive catalogue is available here:
Access
The heritage collections are closed to the public during our digitisation programme. For specific enquiries please consult the catalogue. For more general questions contact us here:
