Arthur Ruffell Barlow Archive (Edinburgh University Library)

The Arthur Ruffell Barlow Archive is a collection of material about the Church of Scotland mission in Kenya. It is about the country’s Kikuyu language, culture, and about the interests and concerns of Africans and their relation to the government. The material is held at Edinburgh University Library in the U.K. and it was created between 1903 and 1965.

It includes his comments on the Kikuyu language, songs, music, customs and idioms; minutes and constitution of the United Kikuyu Language Committee (1908-1917); letters from Barlow to his father (1904-1905) and personal items such as testimonials and correspondence about his retirement and later return to Kenya; correspondence and other items relating to David C. Scott's estate at Kiambu; correspondence, reports, pamphlets and papers produced by and about the missions at Kikuyu and Tumutumu and from the Church of Scotland's Foreign Missionary Council.

It has additions to the Kikuyu-English Dictionary by L.J. Beecher and G.S.B. Beecher (including volumes of the 1935 dictionary with Barlow's handwritten amendments) with correspondence (1956-1962) about the publication of a revised version; Barlow's notes and personal volumes.

It also has notes on the history of the mission in East Africa; papers on the Kenyan Mission Council and the proposed federation of mission societies; material on African affairs such as the Indian question, Harry Thuka, the Labour Bureau Commission, land tenure, the Kikuyu Association, female circumcision, and education; papers concerning the Mau Mau rebellion including Barlow's translation of Kikuyu documents; a manifesto of the Kenyan African National Union (1960); press cuttings; and photographs (1904-1915) relating to Kenya and in particular to the missions at Kikuyu and Tumutumu.