Narrate the historical development of archives in Kenya

It’s a short history compared to the world especially in West Africa. There are two main reasons why they started late;
.1 Africans are by nature oral communicators ie speak face by face rather than writing.
2. There were no education ie lack of literacy.

Missionaries brought literacy in 1844 trough Ludwig Kraft. In 1895 is when the 1st records were kept
Due to predominant Culture or lack of culture the records were not well managed and there were several attempts. The government kept sending circulars to public offices to apply proper record management.
The 1st circular was sent in 1910. This circular was from the governor of Kenya called Percy Girourd and said that there was need for proper record keeping and preservation.
The circular was not implemented because war soon broke out in 1914-1918.
The next circular was not implemented until 1929 and it was a reminder that was said before ie public records should be protected against ravages of climate and other insecurities.
Although there was no war to destruct this circular money was still a problem and there was no skilled manpower.
In 1930 the information that came out was to destroy all dormant records. The officer didn’t implement this because he ignored and gave reasons.
In 1936 the circular came with instructions of appraisal and because there were no trained personnel for appraisal the records were sent in Britain for appraisal. This continued up to 1963.
It was a useful dispatch because it provided a way of Kenya records although it was the beginning of migrated record saga.
In 1939 the records which were left were burnt due to break out of fire in public offices at Jogoo house
In the same year the Second World War broke out until 1945. Up to 1948 no archival related development had been done.
In 1952n a committee was appointed that did something notable called Grigg in Britain to advice British government on the way forward in relation to record management.
The recommendation of this committee came out in 1954 and was as follows;

I. Finances be provided for the purpose for improving record keeping practices in Kenya.
II. Proper archival legislation to govern the way forth ie a law be enacted to govern archival record management.
Some type of archive services was started in Kenya when appraise for dormant records was set aside in the old Jogoo house basement.
An archivist was identified to work there and was given the responsibility of; appraising the records, retrieve and process the records.
People kept bringing their records but the archivist could not go far because of junk problem ie records were mixed up hence difficult in maintaining them. He did very little organizing.
Within one year (1957) the archivist was sacked by the government due to lack of funds to pay his salary
His place was taken by a reference librarian and quoted the issue of finance as the reason until the the country became independent in 1963.
Between 1960-1963 all useful records were migrated to Britain which had negative development of archives.
The new government after independence recognized the need for establishment of a National Archive.
In 1965 further legislation was done. They came up with 2nd circular. The same year proper archival legislation was done outlining in details the functions of an archival service. The law was called public archives act number 32 of 1965. The main function of archive department according to this law was to preserve and care for all public records taken to the National Archive
The government went on to provide;
I. Necessary finances to recruit and train staff
II. Came up with programs and plans for a new archive
III. Made plans to retrieve all the records that had been taken away by colonial government ie migrated archive project.
The migrated archive project is still on ie the government is still claiming its records from Britain
Record centers were also established in provincial areas called provincial record centers.
These centers were made to collect records from public office in the provinces, appraise and transfer them to the National archives that had been established.
By 1990 we had fully established archives in Kenya.

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Titany answered the question on July 23, 2021 at 08:02