Records of this Group are mainly case files on General Administration of the offices of the Commissioner of the Pegu Province, the Chief Commissioner of British Myanmar and the Chief Secretary to the Government of Myanmar and the Deputy Commissioners at the various District Headquarters. These records reflect the variegated activities connected with the work of the Deputy Commissioners who were directly responsible to the Commissioner in charge of a regional Division who was again responsible to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Myanmar.
       The earilest record in R G 1 belongs to the year 1842 acquired from the Shan State People Council although it belonged to the office of the Commissioner of the Tenasserim Province. It is about improper grant of Waste Lands within the Province. Series 1 of R G 1 covers the longest span of years from 1853 to 1945 with only a few gaps for such unimportant years as 1861, 1862, 1864, 1865, 1869, 1871, 1880, 1883, 1943 and 1944. The records of Series 2 are of a different generic type from all the other records of R G 1. They are printed proceedings of Political Department, Home Ministry. Series 3,4 and 5 are records from the offices of the Commissioners of the various Divisions and their respective Deputy Commissioners. Judicial and Land Records proceedings which were kept and managed separately in their own records room are not include in this Group.
      Records pertaining to the Pre-independence periods are of immense historical value as they contain authentic information and eye-witness accounts about many episodes in the history of Myanmar. The earlier records of 1853 to 1886 reveal many useful facts on the laying down of the foundations of the British administrative system in Lower Myanmar. During this period, Upper Myanmar was ruled by King Mindon from 1853 to 1878 when King Thibaw succeeded and continued to reign until he was deposed in 1886. Negotiations between the British and the Court of Ava to effect a peace Treaty at the end of the Second Anglo-Myanmar War (R G 1/1/0 Acc 41, 48 and 62) are fully recorded in these files. Records relevant to Myanmar resistance activities against the British after the Second Anglo-Myanmar War (R G 1/1/0 Acc 14, 25, 30, 39, 43, 85, 118, 128 and 130) and also those on diplomatic intercourse between the British Administration in Lower Myanmar and the Kingdom of Myanmar in Upper Myanmar (R G 1/1/0 Acc 62, 65 and 66) are included in this group. An important political episode in 1866 that nearly changed the course of Myanmar history is recorded fully in reports and correspondence to the Chief Commissioner. Colonel Sladen as Chief Political Officer at the Myanmar Capital of Mandalay was in eye witness to this Palace Uprising of the Myingoon and Myigondaing Princes who assassinated the Crown Prince Kanoung. (R G 1/1/0 Acc 783).
       With the death of king Mindon and the accession of king Thibaw in 1878 a change in the climate of British-Myanmar diplomatic relations is noticeable in these records. (R G 1/1/0 Acc 1483, 1487, 1488, 1493, 1508, 1509, 1512, 1530, 1543, 1544, 1577, 1587, 1588, 1596, 1608, 1665, 1689). The records on British preparations and plans for a third Anglo-Myanmar War (R G 1/1/0 Acc 1703, 1704, 1706 to 1709, 1713 to 1719) are also valuable and important records pertaining to the year of annexation itself, the various resistance activities of important national leaders such as the Wuntho Sawbwas, both father and son; Saw Yan Baing and Saw Yan Naing or the Choung-gwa Princes, sons of the Mekkaya Prince; Sawlapaw, the Sawbwa of Kantarawaddi or the present Kayah State; Bo Swe and U Ottama of Hsinbyugyun; the Limbin Prince together with Maukmai and Legya Sawbwas; the Myinzaing Prince and others. Records on the pacification period (1886-1900) are rare informative materials which this Department has selected and listed for reference by the Research Section of the History Department of the Yangon University. Some unique records in this Group are those relating to the last Myanmar King Thibaw and his Royal Family. (R G 1/1/0 Acc 1844, 1944, 1961, 1962, 1991, 2013, 2046, 2092, 2415, 2416, 2538, 2588, 2672, 2812 and 2997).
       Reports on expeditions to the Kachin and North Eastern Frontier Areas to establish British Administration in the area and to promote trade relations with China (R G 1/1/0 Acc 3219, 3220, 3221, 3226, 3275 to 3283) are compiled fully in this group.
       Records of the 1920’s and 1930’s document Myanmar political activites and movements against British colonialism culminating in the 1938 political upheaval which brought down Dr. Ba Maw’s Government. (R G 1/1/0 Acc 4011 to 4015, 4245, 4451, 4453 to 4455, 4464, 4573 and 4672). The printed files of the Political Department, Home Ministry also embrace many important subjects such as delimitation and defence of the Myanmar-China frontier, intelligence reports on Yunnan, affairs of the Excluded Areas, the Panthay Community in the Shan States, tour of American Baptist Missionaries, and the relation of British Frontier Officers with the tribes and people in the unadministered tracts.
       Records transferred from various States and Divisions have their own regional characteristics. The records of the Irrawaddy Division form the richest source of information, both of research and archival value, because the colonization of the delta of the Irrawaddy as well as the administrative precedents and rulings of the British period can be traced extensively in these records, while the Chin State records document that even as late as 10th July 1943 the office of the Deputy Commissioner Chin Hills was still functioning as part of the British Government of Myanmar-in-exile at Simla (R G 1/5/1 Acc 89). The most important acquisition of official documents from the Shan States are those relating to the Panglon Agreement of 1947 acquired from U Kun Saw and U Kya Bu both signatories to the Agreement. Among the records of the Minbu District which had been sheltered from the ravages of war, the most prominent acquisition is the British counter-propaganda posters against the peasant uprising headed by Saya San in 1930. (R G 1/5/3 Acc 291)
       Since the period covered by the records of Series 1 and Series 2 end in 1945, documents relating to Myanmar’s struggle for independence are not included in these two Series. However this gap has been filled by records transferred from the Office of the People’s Councils of the Irrawaddy Division and Syriam Township which consist of many records relating to the ministerial services strikes of 1947 culminating in the General Strike and the political upheaval in Myanmar’s struggle for Independence. The years 1942, 1943 and 1944 are the Japanese Occupation period in Myanmar. The British Government was functioning from Simla in India, therefore records of that period are missing from every series of this Record Group.