"Warfare in China 1839–1945. British Perspectives", (Brill 2025)

This newly digitized collection offers unique access to primary source documents from The National Archives, London, covering key events such as the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Second Sino-Japanese War. Discover how these historical records were brought online and what they reveal about Britain’s complex relationship with China during a transformative century.

How are historical documents brought to life online? In this section, we speak with members of  The National Archives, London, to learn how thousands of primary source documents, were meticulously selected, digitized, and made accessible to researchers worldwide.

This collection brings together British primary source documents on military conflicts in China. Why is it important to preserve and digitize these records for researchers today?

The documents in this publication are dispersed across a variety of catalogue series at The National Archives, so locating and assembling them was a major challenge. Whilst most of the documents were sourced from the War Office (WO) department in our catalogue, we also had to refer to the Admiralty records (ADM) in order to include the naval aspect. Even within the War Office, there are numerous catalogue series. For example, WO 28 comprises correspondence and papers of the military headquarters, WO 78 is where maps are to be found and WO 106 covers military operations and military intelligence. In short, a great deal of effort was required to bring together these dispersed references into a coherent collection that covered the major historical topics from 1839-1945.  
The next challenge was regulating the size of the collection and working out how each document was relevant. Our catalogue provides a description of the contents and date ranges of documents – both enormously helpful - but it doesn’t normally state how many pages there are in a document. The overall size of the collection therefore had to be estimated by sampling and page-counting individual documents to ensure that was within acceptable parameters. Collections that are too small or too extensive can become commercially unviable to digitise. It was also important to review as many documents as possible to understand the condition and nature of the documents.

Licensing & Publishing Department

How much, and what sort, of conservation was required to the documents before scanning could begin?

The main conservation issues found within the Warfare in China project were within the ADM 125 collection. The ADM 125’s are a collection of bound volumes that showed significant signs of historical water damage, pest damage and mould damage. All these issues can make archival records very fragile and hard to handle for imaging.
The water damage caused cockling and defamation to the boards and papers, some papers got stuck together, which conservation were able to separate through the use of localised humidification. The pest and mould damage varied from slight to extensive, the extensive damage require re-sizing of the paper to make it strong enough again to be handled without tearing of further damage happening during the imaging process.
Within this collection we also found many large transparent maps that had been folded into the volumes. Transparent papers are very highly calendared short fibered papers, which over time often become embrittled and break along fold lines. 
To prepare the ADM 125 volumes for imaging the conservation team flattened and pressed all folds and creases that were obscuring text, repaired any large tears and realigned the fragmented transparent maps using lightweight Japanese tissues with a suitable adhesive such as methyl cellulose or Wheat Starch paste. They also separated the pages that had got stuck together and resized the very mould damaged papers.
Collection Care Department

Given the range of materials included—correspondence, reports, diaries, and maps—how do archivists ensure their proper classification and accessibility?

Archival materials are intellectually managed through descriptions and arrangements that adhere to the original order of the documents and understanding their provenance. A comprehensive description for a record will include:
-    A unique reference to identify each record and where it belongs in the arrangement of the collection
-    A brief overview of the content, extent, and a physical description
-    Its date of creation all the way to the date its creator finished their day-to-day business with it
-    Its history in terms of origin, including its creators and why it was created, and where it fits in the broader collection

Descriptions are essential to accessing archives, alongside catalogues and finding aids to help locate the records—without a description, a reader cannot be certain what a record is about, and without a catalogue, records cannot be found. Descriptions can also prepare readers for their encounter with the record; for example, knowing that the materials are maps will ensure readers have the right conditions prepared to examine them.
To put all in this in context of ”Warfare in China”, for the records in series ADM 125 (Admiralty: China Station: Correspondence, 1828-1946), the description includes the origin of the records, their physical description and the dates covered, so that a reader can immediately find correspondence from the Admiralty’s China Station from these decades. Additional details in the series description include an overview of the content of the correspondence.
Nonetheless, the description for ADM 125 is still too broad to locate and access a specific record. Therefore, descriptions become more specific as the series is broken down into individual records (or defined sets of records like original bundles) intellectually and usually also physically. This is how records end up with thorough, helpful descriptions such as the one for ADM 125/85: Legal papers, agreements, etc. between the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Co., and the Admiralty - with plans.
Cataloguing, Taxonomy and Data Department

How does digitization enhance the accessibility and research value of these historical documents compared to traditional archives?

Digitisation allows these historical documents to be viewed from any institution in the world that is subscribed to the collection. Open (unclassified) documents at The National Archives can be ordered and consulted by visitors with a reader’s ticket, so they are already accessible in that sense, but not everyone is easily able to visit, especially if they live in another country. So, by digitising these documents, we are vastly increasing that accessibility to people who would not normally be able to visit in person. With more people able to study these documents, their research value is also enhanced.  
The functionality that Brill applies to the digitised documents also enormously enhances their accessibility and research value. For example, digitisation means that the text of printed documents can more easily be searched using optical character recognition, or OCR, and searches can reveal related content in other primary source publications on Brill. The benefits of these features lie in making research quicker and more efficient, without the need to search through every page of a physical document. 
Finally, the editorial resources that accompany the primary sources in this collection really help to explain the context and historical importance of the documents, both for experienced researchers and those who are just starting. For those new to researching directly from primary sources it can be particularly daunting, but the editorial material can really help to introduce students to the records and guide them on their way. 
Licensing & Publishing Department

What considerations went into selecting materials for inclusion, and are there any particularly rare or unexpected documents in the collection?

Keeping the material relevant to the topics, events and time period studied in courses and academic literature on the history of modern China was crucial. The material had to fit within a defined time period between the 1830s and the 1940s and include material about the most commonly studied military conflicts during that period. It also needed to reflect as far as possible the trend towards studying the societal effects of warfare, alongside the details of campaigns and logistics. 
The condition of the material was a significant consideration. Academic publishers who license from us pay for the costs of conserving the documents prior to digitisation; therefore, if there were significant quantities of material in very poor condition then the costs could potentially become unviable. Fortunately, the only real challenges were restricted to the documents in ADM 125, and these were surmounted with the application of extensive conservation work. 
Any documents that exist only at The National Archives and nowhere else could be considered unique and therefore rare. The military maps are worth singling out, as many really are works of art with their intricate detail. Even the written annotations on some of the maps are in elaborate script that goes beyond what seems necessary. This is somewhat unexpected, given their purely functional purpose, but it seems to reflect the importance that must have been attached to maps in the days before modern charts and satellite navigation. 
Licensing & Publishing Department

What are the advantages of working with an academic publisher to bring these primary sources online, and how does this collaboration support the mission of the archives?

The increased accessibility that an academic publisher brings to our documents is a huge benefit. By allowing more people than would otherwise visit the archives to study our documents, and create new research, this collaboration supports our mission to preserve public records and make them accessible. This has been one of our fundamental purposes since the Public Records Act in 1838 that established a home for UK government records. The publication of millions of pages of primary sources each year is something we can only achieve through commercial publishers, who pay for the expensive work of conserving, imaging and publishing.   
Working with academic publishers helps to preserve our documents for future generations. All documents for digitisation must be assessed by Collection Care to ensure that they can be imaged safely. Projects often involve extensive conservation to ensure that no damage to fragile documents occurs during imaging and that existing damage that obscures text is repaired. Once digital copies are published, the original documents can be transferred to an offsite storage facility. With the digital copy now available, there is no need for original documents to be ordered. Repeated handling of documents is a significant reason why they deteriorate, so removing them from ordering prevents further damage. 
The commercial income that The National Archives receives from working with academic publishers is absolutely vital to supporting our mission. Looking after one of the largest archival collections in the world and making it available, along with our other statutory functions, costs a lot of money. The income that we generate, chiefly through licensing royalties, helps to pay for our core public tasks alongside funding that we receive from central government. This keeps costs for taxpayers sustainable and means that we can continue our mission to make our records available as widely as possible. 
Licensing & Publishing Department

What makes this collection important for research? We interviewed academic advisor Dr Matthew Heaslip, who guided the curation of this collection together with Associate Professor Chi Man Kwong. He shares insights into selecting the most relevant documents, providing historical context, and ensuring the resource meets the needs of researchers and educators.

How does this collection help us understand Britain’s military and political involvement in China during this transformative period?

This collection offers access to a great selection of key files that cover the most important moments in Britain's military and political interactions with China, whether as an expanding imperial presence in the 19th and early 20th centuries, or working together with China against Japanese aggression in the 1930s and 1940s. It therefore places core information at the disposal of researchers anywhere in the world.

How do these British records contribute to broader historiographical debates about China’s political, social, and military transformation?

Our understanding of Britain's role in East Asia has tended to be a fragmented one, split between the different sub-fields of historical research. These records offer a single repository that may help pull together those disparate elements, highlighting the links between the British Empire's political, diplomatic, economic, social, and military relationships with China and East Asia. 

What insights can researchers gain from these documents about Britain’s shifting role in East Asia from the Opium Wars to the mid-20th century?

The files cover a period in which the British Empire underwent significant changes, first during its rapid growth over the second half of the 19th century, through a period of challenge in Europe that saw East Asia drop to a distant concern, until finally it became the epicentre of the events that ultimately brought about the retreat from Empire after the Second World War. Through this collection researchers can therefore explore the full course of that rise and fall, along with the many dramatic events along its path.

What was your role in the project? 

It was a pleasure for me to participate in this project, playing a role in selecting and curating the collection, and then to help decipher the value those files have to researchers of a variety of backgrounds. This included producing the supporting material, advising on maps, and the filming of the promotional video. This work was done in conjunction with Associate Professor Chi Man Kwong of Hong Kong Baptist University.
 

Why publish a digital collection on China’s modern history? Dr Kate Hammond discusses the collaboration between TNA and Brill, explaining how digitising collections enhances access to valuable historical resources and supports scholarly research.

What steps were involved in transforming these archival materials into a fully searchable digital collection?

The core document selection was made by TNA, but we reviewed the content, and with the help of our academic advisors, selected further sources to add, in order to cover any gaps in the collection. Conservation and scanning of the documents is the longest part of the process – this is all work done by hand, with the utmost care. While that is going on, we are preparing the supporting material which contextualises the collection, such as the comprehensive introductory essay. The indexing is the next major step, and then we can upload everything onto the test site. We go over everything with a fine toothcomb, iron out any bugs, check, check, and check again – and then we are ready for launch on the live site!  

With over 120,000 digitized images, how did you approach indexing and metadata creation to ensure usability for researchers?

Easy navigability for users was always at the forefront of our minds when preparing this project. We took TNA’s organisation as our benchmark, and so in the first place, the documents are ordered by series and file number, in order to replicate how you would access this material in the archive. 
But it is helpful to be able to browse and search in other ways, too. We were lucky that TNA’s own catalogue offered a firm basis for contextual information. However, it was patchy and we wanted to add more types of information. Our own indexing process therefore filled in the gaps and added information in order to ensure a full and rounded coverage: for instance, we added language of document, and type of document – so if you only want to see files with documents in Chinese, or files with newspaper articles, then that is possible. 
Finally, the entire collection – both the printed and the handwritten documents – also underwent OCR (optical character recognition), meaning that sources are fully searchable. So if, for instance, you are researching a particular individual who is not prominent enough to be mentioned in the cataloguing, then a simple full-text search on the name will bring up any documents containing mention of that person.  

How does this resource complement other existing digital collections published by Brill on Chinese history and on the history of warfare?

This is our second collaboration with TNA, and the first project also concerned the history of warfare, with Warfare in North America, c. 1756-1815: British Perspectives. It was interesting to work on the same theme in a different geographical and chronological context – there were many continuities, some quite surprising (for instance, the importance of intelligence), but some things were entirely novel (inclusion of material from the Air Ministry was not something we had to consider for the North America project!)
We have a strong collection of digital publications on Chinese and East Asian history, particularly newspaper sources, such as the North China Herald Online and Translations of the Peking Gazette Online. These collections cover a comparable period to Warfare in China and therefore engage with similar themes, such as Chinese imperial decline, growing foreign presence in China, and the beginnings of China’s rise to the superpower it is today – but from a very different source basis.  
Perhaps the cluster that this project sits best with is our sources on intelligence history: British Intelligence Files on China and the Boxer Rising, c. 1880-1930  and British Intelligence Files on the Chinese in Tibet (c. 1900-1950)  – drawn from the India Office Records now at the British Library – looks at the same period with an exclusive focus on intelligence, complementing well Warfare in China’s files from the HS series (Special Operations Executive). The story is then completed with the view from across the Atlantic during the Cold War with U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991.

How do you see scholars and students benefiting from access to these primary sources?

The collection brings together an enormous amount of material and makes it available at the click of a button. Whereas it was previously only available for viewing on-site at Kew, you can now access these sources from anywhere, at any time. Taken together, the documents touch on so many themes – military, but also political and social history, global affairs and international relations, the changing role of the West and the emergence of China, to name just a few – that they can aid all sorts of researchers with all sorts of topics. The powerful searching capabilities can open up new and perhaps unexpected avenues for research by bringing to light lesser known material.  
The fact that the collection is simple to navigate, plus the easy readability of the sources, means that it is also perfect for teaching. Some of the documents will really bring history to life for students, such as the very personal diary of a German officer in Tsingtao from 1914, or the fascinating field guides issued to agents in China during the Second World War (HS 1/148: China guide book / HS 1/149: China guide book).