Transcribe Documents

The Straits Settlements Records (SSR) is a collection of records relating to British administration of the Straits Settlements (SS) comprising Singapore, Penang and Malacca from 1826 to 1946. Our collection of Straits Settlements records has a lot of material that is handwritten, but handwritten documents can't be read well by computers. We need your help to transcribe these pages that have been digitised from microfilm to help make these more easily searchable for everyone! And yes, the handwriting can be hard to decipher, and some of the words will be unreadable-- but every part that you can do helps.

Cedric Errol Carr was a botanist, specialising in orchids, who collaborated with the former Singapore Botanic Gardens’ Director R E Holttum in the late 1920s to 1930s. On Carr’s death in 1936 in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the Singapore Botanic Gardens were made an offer to purchase his collected orchid specimens of this region (c. 4300 dried and in spirit) along with his critical notes. Detailed descriptions are captured in his field notebooks on his collection trip to Kinabalu that compliments the specimens he collected. The Singapore Herbarium (SING) has over 7000 specimens (both orchids and non-orchids) of which over 250 specimens are types and over 1300 spirit collection of Carr’s field collection. Transcribe his notebooks to help make biodiversity information about the region more accessible! More about Carr: http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/FMCollectors/C/CarrCE.htm

Penang, Singapore and Malacca Consultations are the minutes of the proceedings of the Council appointed in 1805 to advise the President of Penang on important matters. This volume contains information such as the Dutch operations against Perak and Selangor. It covers the period from Nov 1818 to July 1819.

From the 1830s-1867, the government of Bengal continued to exercise its authority over the Straits Settlements (SS) despite numerous administrative re-organisations. This changed after 1867 when the Straits Settlements became a Crown Colony. This volume covers mainly letters from the Governor of the SS to the Governor of Bengal from the period Oct 1834-Apr 1836.

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