Tanzania National Archives - Dar es Salaam

Mr Harry Fosbrooke and the Library of the University of Dar es Salaam, main compus, (Hereinafter referred to as the University Library) agreed to the following clauses of agreement with regard to the deposit of the Henry Fosbrooke collection Maasai and other topics:

* Mr Henry Fosbrooke agreed to bequeth to the University Library, the original of all books, papers and photographs in his collection as represented by the catalogue cards prepared by the University Library. Such material were collected and deposited with the University Library when Mr. Henry Fosbrooke was deceased

* The University Library undertook to keep this material intact as the Henry Fosbrooke collection and to publicise it by publishing a catalogue of the collection.

* In addition Mr. Fosbrooke also agreed to send to the Library one photocopy of all materials that were photocopied for the Centre for African Studies, Cambridge University, the cost of which reproduction had already been funded by DANIDA

The University Library continued to provide expertise to catalogue and arrange the materials on the premises of Mr. Henry Fosbrooke where the originals remained until Mr. Henry Fosbrooke was deceased.

Mr Henry Fosbrooke had had a long career of public service in Tanzania and elsewhere in central and Southern Africa. Following a degree in Economics and Anthropology ( first class honours) and one year's colonial service course at the Cambridge, he started in Tanzania in 1931 as a District Officer (Cadet). He served in the Administration for 18 years , followed by 7 years as Government Sociologist.

Moving to Central Africa, he served as Director of the Institute of Social Research in Lusaka, as Rural Sociologist in the FAO development project in Botswana and as Co Manager of the UK sponsored Kafue Basin Survey in Zambia. Back in Tanzania he was Conservator of the Ngorongoro Conservation Unit for 3 years and a UNEP Consultant with the Tanzania Capital Authority in Dodoma. He has undertaken other consultancies and served for 8 years on the Board of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority and 3 years as a member of the National Land Use Planning commission. In the course of his career as Conservator, he has generated a lot of his research material and collected a number of environmental , conservation papers, books and other publications

Most area (formerly district) offices have a district book, a volume of typescripts on local history, customs, and administration. Some of these are of considerable importance. The Tanzania National Archives is microfilming them. Photostats of a few books are in the library of Makerere University College, and typescript selections may be found in the Tanzania National Museum, the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, and Rhodes House, Oxford,

One or other copy of each book has been used in this study, with the exception of Chunya, Mpanda, and Nachingwea. The area offices do not possess German records.

The main holdings relevant to this study are the surviving records of the government of German East Africa. These were assembled by the British administration between 1916 and 1951, and were first lodged in the Land Office, where the present writer studied them. They are now deposited in the archives. The government filed its records centrally, but numbered them by departments and subjects on a variant of a decimal classification system:

TNA IX Missions, churches, schools

TNA IX/B Schools

TNA IX/B/4 Tanga School

TNA IX/B/4/1 Tanga School, 1895-1906

District offices kept their own files, as did a number of specialist agencies. Many records were hidden or destroyed during the First World War, and some - although surprisingly few - have been lost subsequently. Land files are especially numerous, and there is a large holding of legal records, only a selection of which were consulted for this study. There are important collections on European political organisations and self- government, public works, plantation companies, missions, education, and Islam.

The records of district political administration are few. For a historian, the reference system is wildly impracticable. The archivists have tried to reconstitute the German filing system, and this book follows the same practice. However, the British administration imposed several different reference systems on the records. It was chiefly interested in land titles, and therefore reconstituted two series of files, from various sources, numbered against the relevant entry in a Grundbuch or Landregister. It also put together a series numbered against the proceedings of the land commission which first surveyed the plot concerned (e.g. TNA LKV Moshi 6).

Many of these files are in fact of general political or other interest, and only incidentally contain a land commission report. Further, another series is listed against the number of the enemy property lot by which the land was auctioned after 1918; these became known as grants (e.g. TNA Grants Tanga 24.).

Files not concerned with land were given a series number as 'Minute Papers, German'. Finally, many files are simply numbered on the front in crayon, and can be cited only by this number and the colour in which it is written (e.g. TNA brown 17). Many have several different numbers; preference is given in this book according to the order in which the systems are summarised here.

General Information

The University Library is located at the main campus. It holds about 500,000 books, subscribes to about 2800 journals, and has 28 CD-ROM databases. The library collection is geared primarily towards providing materials and documentation services to support the teaching and research activities of the university. However, being a national depository library and the largest national collection of research materials, such services are also extended to others engaged in research on various government projects in the country, and to scholars from all over the world.

There are separate collections as follows: main books collection known as general collection for Arts, Social Sciences, and Sciences; Serials Collection; Microfilms ( about 449); Reference and CD-ROMs Collection; The East Africana Collection with its sub-collections of Maps , Theses, and Manuscripts; Law Collection; United Nations Documents; the Pamphlets and Reprints; Special Reserve Collection; Nyerere Collection; Biodiversity and Environmental Data Bank Collections; and finally the Fosbrooke Collection and ERNETA.

Special Collections

*Biodiversity Database

*Thesis Database (List of thesis available at University of Dar es Salaam Library)

* Environmental Database

* Fosbrooke Collection