This photograph shows Muhammed Ali Jinnah, leader of the All-India Muslim League, meeting with several members of the Cabinet Mission on 16 April 1946. Jinnah, second from the left, shakes hands with Lord Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy of India from June 1943 to March 1947. The other members of the Cabinet Mission are Secretary of State for India and Burma Lord Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (on the far left), First Lord of the Admiralty Albert Victor Alexander (in the centre) and President of the Board of Trade Sir Stafford Cripps (on the far right). 

What was the Cabinet Mission?
In March 1946 Prime Minister Clement Attlee asked Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander to join Wavell in India to discuss the transfer of power from the British government to Indian political leadership. Over the following months they met with members of the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress at the Viceroy’s lodge in Shimla, India, to try and negotiate an agreement. On 16 May 1946 the Cabinet Mission proposed a plan for a united India. However, distrust between Congress and the Muslim League led negotiations to break down, and ultimately no agreement was reached. 

About the Joyce Collection
This album contains images of the Cabinet Mission’s visit to India between March and June 1946. The album includes images of British officials meeting Indian political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammed Ali Jinnah in New Delhi and Shimla. Alec Houghton Joyce was a civil servant who took part in the Cabinet Mission. He donated this album to the India Office Library after he retired in 1958.