West Indies Development and Welfare Organisation: Registered Files

IDENTITY STATEMENT AREA

Reference code(s): CO 1042

Title: West Indies Development and Welfare Organisation: Registered Files

Date(s): 1938 - 1958

Level of description: Series

Extent and medium of the unit of description: 404 file(s)

CONTEXT AREA

Name of creator(s): West Indies Development and Welfare Organisation

Administrative/Biographical history: Following a series of riots in various British colonies in the West Indies in 1938, the West India Royal Commission was set up to investigate social and economic conditions in the islands, British Guyana and British Honduras. Its report in 1939 resulted in the formation of the West Indies Development and Welfare Organisation (WIDWO) in 1940, and led to the passing of the Colonial Development and Welfare Act 1940.
Both measures were designed to assure Britain's colonial possessions of Britain's continuing commitment to economic and social development of the colonies during the war, while the WIDWO was also intended to counter American concerns about social conditions in the colonial territories in the Caribbean.
WIDWO was based in Barbados, headed by a Comptroller for Development and Welfare. Its function was to undertake continuing reviews of the economic needs of the West Indian colonies, and to advise colonial governments and the Colonial Office about proposed development schemes. WIDWO was essentially an advisory body, and such development schemes were required to be framed by governments and the comptroller in collaboration. Reporting to the Comptroller were advisers on medicine, education, agriculture, social matters, labour, economics, engineering, housing and town planning, and a small secretariat.
The Colonial Development and Welfare Act was amended in 1945, allocating more funds to development and welfare projects. WIDWO continued to collaborate with local governments in working out long term social reform programmes and development and welfare schemes for which United Kingdom grants were recommended until it was wound up in March 1958, when the creation of the Federation of the West Indies saw most of its functions being assumed by the federal government.
The Comptroller also served as the British co-chairman of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC), established in 1942 to promote economic and social co-operation between islands and to avoid duplication of effort. The AACC became the Caribbean Commission in 1945, when the other colonial powers in the West Indies (France and the Netherlands) joined.

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer:

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE AREA

Scope and content: This series consists of files of the West Indies Development and Welfare Organisation relating to its wide range of responsibilities in the fields of economic and social development, including projects arising from the Colonial Development and Welfare Act 1940. Subjects covered include agriculture, fisheries, industrial development, transport and employment, and the development of welfare services, health, education and housing, together with public administration and public relations.
Includes files relating to the Organisation's involvement with the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (later the Caribbean Commission), the West Indian Conferences of 1944 and 1946, the 1947 Conference on Closer Association, and the Standing Closer Association Committee which resulted from it and papers of the Commission on Unification of Public Services.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

System of arrangement:

CONDITIONS OF ACCESS AND USE AREA

Conditions governing access: Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Language/scripts of material: English

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids: PRO Online Catalogue (PROCAT)

ALLIED MATERIALS AREA

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related units of description: See also PRO Online Catalogue (PROCAT) series: CO 950

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION CONTROL AREA

Recorder's note:

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: December 2001

Interest: Caribbean, Black, Asian

Specific group:

Subjects

Decolonization

Colonial countries

Colonialism

Colonial Development and Welfare Act 1940

Economic and social development

Development aid

Personal/Corporate names

Places

Bahamas

Windward Islands

Trinidad and Tobago

Leeward Islands

Jamaica

Honduras

Guyana

Barbados