Jeremy Paxman - Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British

I have been very fortunate indeed in the people who have helped me. Jillian Taylor is the best researcher a writer could wish for conscientious, imaginative and astonishingly industrious: I no sooner asked a question than had it answered, wherever she happened to be in the world at that moment. The book was commissioned by Tom Weldon, but on his departure to metadata wonderland it was Mary Mount who steered the thing from manuscript to book, without ever seeming to get agitated when things were not as she was expecting. The appearance of the book is entirely her work. Peter James, king of copy-editors, did his usual impeccable job.

Staff at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, the National Archives, British Library Newspapers at Colindale, the Imperial War Museum (Collections) and the London Library were all tremendously helpful. That magnificent place the British Library at St Pancras deserves special mention, as an example of a largely unsung, quietly efficient institution where it is a delight to work. In various one-time imperial territories, members of the Foreign Office were generous with their thoughts and hospitality Dominic and Louise Asquith in Cairo, Howard and Gill Drake in Kingston and Richard and Arabella Stagg in Delhi in particular.

The television series which will follow this book was a bold commission by Jay Hunt, then Controller of BBC One, and was later supported by her successor, Danny Cohen. It was overseen by Basil Comely and was researched by the queen of television researchers, Jane Mayes, whose enormous suitcase of ancient maps, books and diarrhoea pills followed us around the world, with the exception of the Middle East, where Suniti Somaiya looked after us. Cameraman Mike Garner and sound recordist Dave Williams put up with incessant travel and inconvenience with immense good humour, even though endless hours in endless airports were never quite long enough to get us all to understand the simple challenge of a childs card game called Newmarket. Like replacement subalterns in 1916, four directors John Hay, Roger Parsons, Robin Dashwood and David Vincent led our forays in different continents. We were helped in India by Shernaz Italia, Neelima Goel, Abhra Bhattacharya and Iqbal Kidwai; in Israel by Noam Shalev; in Kenya by Andrew Nightingale; in Malawi by Chris Badger; in Hong Kong by Mark Roberts; in Jamaica by Susan Henzell; in Egypt by Ramy Romany; in Sudan by George and Makis Pagoulatos; in South Africa by Rick Matthews and in Canada by Pat Mestern. The series was worried over, chiselled and polished by series producer Julian Birkett and edited with great flair by Andrea Swoopy Carnevali.

So many other people helped at one time or another that it seems unfair to mention only a few, but among them are Nicholas Utechin of the Sherlock Holmes Society; Melanie Jones, Education Manager of the Historical Association; Daniel Scott-Davies, at the Scout Association; Neil Griffiths, with the Royal British Legion Scotland; Lucy McCann, at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House; Malcolm Barres-Baker, of the Brent Archives; Ian Bushnell, Chief Librarian for the Office of National Statistics; Rosemary Taylor, of the Office of National Statistics; Adrian Watkins, of the Church Missionary Society; Parwez Samuel Kaul, Principal of the Tyndale-Biscoe and Mallinson Schools in Kashmir; West Lothian Councillor Willie Dunn; Emma Davidson, of the Royal Society; Frank Kelly and Clare Kitcat at Christs College, Cambridge; Ros Jemmett at Ardross Castle; the Wembley local history society; Gordons School in Woking; Thomas Woodcock, Garter Principal King of Arms; Anna Beveridge at Marks and Spencer; Ranjit and Namita Mathrani of Veeraswamy; and Frank Savage, Matt Thoume, Helen Nellthorpe and Professor Patrick Salmon at the Foreign Office. I am very grateful to that legend in the world of indexing, Douglas Matthews, for his work in producing the final pages of the book. Ronald Hyam, doyen of imperial historians, was kind enough to read the manuscript for factual accuracy: any remaining howlers are mine alone, and he cant be blamed for bias or blind spots.

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Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Afr. s. 1755

Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Afr. t. 1

Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Brit. Emp. s. 415

Kingston, National Library of Jamaica, MS 105

Lincolnshire County Archives, Diary of Thomas Thistlewood

The Century: A Popular Quarterly

Daily Mail

Pall Mall Gazette

The Telegraph (Calcutta)

The Times

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Oxford English Dictionary

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