Given by P.T. Mansfield, I.C.S. and Mrs. Mansfield.

Bihar and Orissa: 1915-1974

In 1968-71 P.T. Mansfield edited and typed his collection of letters written from Bihar where he was sent on joining the I.C.S. to his parents in England and bound them in four volumes (1915-1922). The introduction describes the scope of the letters which describes his life in detail, as an I.C.S. officer, particularly Settlement work, and they provide comment on the attitude of members of the I.C.S. to their work, their official and social relations with Europeans and Indians. He also comments that the letters cover a period of growth and of gradual development of autonomy – “perhaps the most fruitful of all the years of British rule.”

After his death in 1974 his wife, Mrs. Q. Mansfield, gave to the Archive all his letters edited and typed, but not bound, and without introduction, and also all his unedited letters 1923-34. These continued to describe in detail his life as an Administrative Officer, and his opinions and observations on the political, economic, agricultural and social situation in India and the part played by British administration.

Letters by Mansfield from Bihar and Orissa, home to England. The letters were typed 1969-71 by Mansfield from the originals and the purely personal parts were removed.

Box 1 – Four volumes of edited and bound letters, 1915 – 1922.

Box 2 – Original and unedited letters used in bound volumes in Box 1.

Box 3 – Original and unedited letters used in bound volumes in Box 1.

Box 4 – TS and MS edited letters, 1923 – 1926 (not included in edited volumes in Box 1).

Box 5 – MS unedited letters, unbound, 2 January 1927 – 31 July 1929.

Box 6 – MS unedited letters, unbound, 8 August 1929 – 17 March 1934, 8 October 1936.

Box 7 – Miscellaneous articles: I.C.S. in Orissa, tour diaries; tour diaries (1950s).

Box 8 – Printed material

Box 9 – Xerox copies of part of a scrap book kept by Mrs. Mansfield consisting of newspaper cuttings, etc. from the time of her wedding to Mr. P.T., Mansfield in 1922, to his obituary notice in 1979.