Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

UK Tribunal To Decide On Mountbatten Diaries From Partition Period

UK Tribunal To Decide On Mountbatten Diaries From Partition Period

It covers an important period of British-Indian history, including when India's Partition was being overseen by Mountbatten and involves personal diaries and letters of both Lord Louis and wife Lady Edwina Mountbatten.
The personal diaries and letters of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, are at the heart of an ongoing appeal hearing in London this week, to decide whether they can be fully released for open public access.

Judge Sophie Buckley is presiding over the First-Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) appeal, scheduled for hearings until Friday, to determine the fate of some redacted sections of the diaries and correspondence dating back to the 1930s.

It covers an important period of British-Indian history, including when India's Partition was being overseen by Mountbatten and involves personal diaries and letters of both Lord Louis and wife Lady Edwina Mountbatten.

The UK Cabinet Office maintains that most of the information from those papers is already in the public domain and any withheld aspects "would compromise the UK's relations with other states", with reference to India and Pakistan.

"The Mountbatten collection is important historically but there are also important issues at state - not least abuse of state power and the censoring of our history," said Andrew Lownie, the historian and author of 'The Mountbattens: The Lives and Loves of Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten' who has been fighting a four-year-long battle for the complete release of the papers.

In 2011, the University of Southampton purchased the archival material, named Broadlands Archive, from the Mountbatten family, using public funds of over 2.8 million pounds and with the intention of making the papers widely available. However, the university then referred some of the correspondence to the Cabinet Office.

In 2019, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) had found in favour of Lownie and ordered the release of the entire Broadlands Archive - which also includes "letters from Lady Mountbatten to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the newly independent India (33 files, 1948-60), along with copies of his letters to her".

The University of Southampton had explained in response at the time that the correspondence between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru remained in private ownership and is "confidential but the University has a future interest in it".

That decision of the ICO has since been appealed, which is now being heard in the First-Tier Tribunal this week.

"The Cabinet Office have now narrowed the number of exemptions they are seeking to impose so most of the letters and diaries are available. This is a victory after four years of campaigning but there is still a legal bill of GBP 50,000 and so the crowfunding has to go on," noted Lownie, in an update from the hearings on Tuesday.

The author says he has spent his savings on the case and has raised over 54,000 pounds in pledges from the CrowdJustice.Com website to fund the ongoing appeal.

"This is an important archive and also involves crucial principles of censorship, Freedom of Information, abuse of power. No university should be blocking public access to archive material of great historical significance which it purchased using public money and for which tax income was forfeited," said Lownie.

The diaries of Mountbatten, who was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, an uncle to the late Duke of Edinburgh and great-uncle to Prince Charles, also contain personal correspondence within the royal family - another factor cited behind some redactions.

"Protecting the dignity of The Queen and working members of the royal family by protecting their privacy in truly private matters preserves their ability to discharge their duties in their fundamental and central constitutional role, not least of unifying the nation (as was seen during the depths of the current pandemic)," notes a written witness statement of Roger Smethurst, head of knowledge and information management at the Cabinet Office.

"Despite its age there is some information within the documents held by the University which, if released, would compromise the UK's relations with other states. The witness statement from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) sets out the matters of potential harm and provides details for the Tribunal to consider in its balance of the public interest," the witness statement further notes.

Meanwhile, the hearing remains ongoing with oral witness statements and cross-examinations and a decision is expected at a later date.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×