A collection of documents from Britain’s colonial past are to be made public for the first time through the UK’s National Archives.

The files were sent to the UK from various former territories, mostly at the time they achieved independence. The documents emerged when four people who had participated in the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s sued the UK, claiming they were tortured by the colonial government. The country’s foreign secretary William Hague said research linked to the case made the foreign office aware of the importance of the documents.

“It is the right thing to do, for the information in these files can now be properly examined and made available to the public,” he said.

David Anderson, professor of African politics at Oxford University, told the BBC, “We will learn things the British government of the time did not want us to know.”