Anthony Talbot de Burgh Wilmot was born in 1915 and educated at Sevenoaks School, Tonbridge School, and Oxford. In 1938, he joined the Colonial Service and went out to Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) as an Administrative Officer. During the war, he saw military service in the Civil Affairs Branch, East Africa Command, taking part in the Ethiopian Campaign and in the military administration of British Somaliland, where, in 1945, he acted as Secretary to the Government and Deputy Military Governor.

The following year, Wilmot returned to the Colonial Office in London and in Nov went to the Gold Coast (Ghana) as District Commissioner, and later Assistant Colonial Secretary. In 1949, he led the Gold Coast (Ghana) delegation to conferences on land utilisation and indigenous rural economy. In 1950, he was appointed Senior Assistant Secretary, and from 1952 to 1955 he served as Principal Assistant Secretary. Throughout this period, Wilmot was closely involved in development projects in the Gold Coast (Ghana), especially the Volta River Scheme and Tema harbour construction.

In Jan 1956, he joined the Colonial Development Corporation. After six months in London, he was sent to Nigeria and, in Nov, to Singapore to the post of Deputy Regional Controller, Far East. Here, he was responsible for Colonial Development Corporation work in West Malaya (Malaysia), Borneo, and Sarawak. In Jan 1958, he returned to West Africa as Regional Controller based in Lagos, a post he held until 1962. At the time when this collection was deposited by Wilmot with the Oxford University Colonial Records Project in 1970, he was working with the United States Economic Consulting Company, as adviser to the Western Nigeria Government.