Tag Archives: Archive

General Elections in the Archives

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With less than a week to go before the general election, cataloguing archivist Hollie Piff decided to search through our collections for material with an electoral theme.

The University’s Special Collections are vast and cover a broad range of topics, so it’s unsurprising that general elections popped up more than once when searching the catalogue.

A.L. Rowse

The first collection that caught my eye, and inspired a new exhibition in the Forum Library, were the Papers of A.L. Rowse (EUL MS 113). A.L. Rowse was an historian, poet, diarist, biographer, and critic, born in Tregonissey near St. Austell, Cornwall. He won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, gaining a first-class honours degree in history in 1925 when he was also elected Fellow of All Souls, Oxford. It was during this period that he established many of the social contacts with academic, political, and literary circles that he maintained for rest of his life. Rowse was a prolific letter writer, so his collection contains hundreds of letters from politicians, artists, writers, and other notable people, including correspondence from Prime Ministers.

Correspondence from Winston Churchill reveals a friendship between the two men, and many of Churchill’s letters praise Rowse’s writing. Rowse wrote two books about Churchill and his family, and supported Churchill in the publication of his own book, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, in 1956. Rowse was invited to celebrate the publication of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, and the seating plan shows him placed at the head table with Churchill. The guests were served salmon and roast beef, followed by a crinoline lady cake for dessert. Other notable guests included Sir Allen Lane, co-founder of Penguin Books, and Eartha Kitt, singer of ‘Santa Baby’.

Books written by A.L. Rowse, including The Early and Later Churchills

Unfortunately, not all the letters were quite so celebratory. A letter from Denis Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher’s husband, to Rowse on the 19th of November 1990 reveals a weariness at 10 Downing Street. “Over 30 years of vicarious politics,” Thatcher writes, “I have learnt that it is harsh and often thankless” (EUL MS 113/3/1/T). This letter came five days after a Conservative Party leadership election was called by Michael Heseltine, which perhaps explains Denis Thatcher’s suggestion that “the combination of the ambitious and the disaffected changes the course of history, more often than not for the worse” (EUL MS 113/3/1/T). The very next day Margaret Thatcher would fail to win the first ballot outright, and would announce her resignation on the 22nd of November 1990.

Syon Abbey

Rather unexpectedly, general elections also feature in the Syon Abbey collection (EUL MS 389). Syon Abbey was a monastery of the Bridgettine Order, founded at Twickenham in 1415. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the community split into groups to continue their religious practice; some groups stayed in England while others travelled abroad. In 1861 the community returned to England, settling in Devon from 1925 until 2011 when the monastery was closed.

In 1951, the nuns applied to the Bishop of Plymouth to be allowed to leave the abbey to vote in the general election. The bishop’s office wrote to the abbess to say that as the “election [was] of a very serious nature,” they should “write to the Apostolic Delegate” for special permission (EUL MS 389/ECC/1/9). Permission was eventually granted by William Godfrey, papal representative to England and later Archbishop of Westminster, and the nuns were allowed to vote.

The 1951 general election was “of a very serious nature” because it was called 20 months after the 1950 general election. The result was tight and, while the Labour Party won the most votes, the first-past-the-post system meant that the Conservative Party, with Winston Churchill as leader, took power in Westminster with a majority of only 17 seats.

Items from the Syon Abbey Collection (EUL MS 389)

Cecil Harmsworth

The Cecil Harmsworth (1869-1948) papers (EUL MS 435) provide an insight into the day-to-day life of an MP in the early 20th century. Harmsworth was a Liberal politician, born in London and educated at Trinity College Dublin. His political career began in 1899 when he ran unsuccessfully as the Liberal candidate for Mid Worcestershire, and later as the Liberal candidate for North East Lanarkshire in 1901. Harmsworth’s luck changed in 1906 when he became the Liberal MP for Droitwich, and his defeat in the 1910 general election eventually led to his extended tenure as MP for Luton from 1911-1922. Harmsworth also served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Department under Lloyd George, and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and was appointed to the House of Lords in 1939.

The collection is particularly rich in autobiographical writing, with personal and travel diaries from 1900-1948. The diaries contain personal and professional observations and notes, including references to domestic and foreign policy, and inserted press cuttings, letters, and cards. Both World Wars are represented, including an entry on Monday 23rd April 1945 declaring the end of the black out “after five long years” (EUL MS 435/1/1).

Harmsworth also created a scrapbook to document his time in the House of Commons. The scrapbook is fragile and incomplete, but it contains copies of letters from H.H. Asquith, dinner menus, press cuttings, and addresses to Parliament.

EUL MS 435/2/14 – Scrapbook of items relating to the House of Commons, 1906-1922

To learn more about the political archives held here in Special Collections, check out or LibGuides subject guide, read our blog about the Cecil Harmsworth collection, or search our catalogue.

Don’t forget to vote next Thursday (4th July), and make sure to bring a form of voter ID!

Student Newspapers, Section 28, and LGBTQ+ Life at Exeter – guest blog by Chloë Edwards

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This year, in collaboration with the Section 28 and Its Afterlives project, Special Collections was pleased to welcome Chloë Edwards on an internship to explore student publications in the University Archive to find out what they can tell us about LGBTQ+ lives and the impact of Section 28 at the University. Below, Chloë shares her findings.

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The Background of the Project

I was delighted to be offered an archival internship with the Section 28 and Its Afterlives project team and the University Library’s Special Collections. Section 28 of the Local Government Act, in place from 1988 until 2000 in Scotland, and until 2003 in England and Wales, prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” as a “pretended family relationship”. This National Lottery Heritage funded project explores the impact of Section 28 and its consequences on local lives in the South West.

My role involved searching for articles and discussions pertaining to Section 28 in Exeter’s student publications, a task which had struck a chord with me for several reasons. Firstly, owing to its proximity to my ongoing PhD research for my thesis entitled Listen Without Prejudice: Queer Masculinities in the Popular Music Cultures of Thatcher’s Britain. Secondly, as a woman from Cardiff, I am always supportive of projects unearthing LGBTQ+ histories and experiences beyond the largest urban spaces across the nation. Lastly, I happened to write and edit articles for Exeter’s current student publication, Exeposé, for two years as an undergraduate. Collectively, as a result, I was eager to begin poring over back issues of Exeposé and its predecessors, as valued records of the lives and concerns of local undergraduates who have progressed through the university.

After discussion with the Section 28 and Its Afterlives team and Special Collections archivist Annie Price, I began my research into Exeter’s student newspapers. We had decided to begin my research at the point at which the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised sex between men over the age of 21 in England and Wales. This origin point meant that I could begin my research with a thorough overview of the documentation of attitudes and legislative changes to gay and queer lives in the UK leading up to the enactment of Section 28 in 1988.

The Early Thatcher Years & Gay Lives on Campus

The South Westerner was the chief campus paper at the time of the Sexual Offences Act’s passing in 1967. Running up until 1979, the year in which Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister, several articles and excerpts reflect the atmosphere and attitudes of Exeter’s students to LGBTQ+ lives and rights in the years following the legislative change. Initially, letters and articles covered the tearing down of GaySoc posters around campus; gradually, there appears to be an ongoing shift in willingness to discuss and support gay students in Exeter. GaySoc, an ancestor to the current University of Exeter LGBTQ+ Society, was increasingly active in these years, organising events around the university and city in a move towards community building, seen in an advert for a former club near the Quay that hosted a bespoke disco night (fig. 1).

Figure 1: Routes Advert, The South Westerner, 22 February 1979, p. 3, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/SOU, South Westerner 1978-1980 (accessed 21st February 2024).

Figure 2: Mark Hubbard, ‘Gay Pride in ‘85’, Signature, Summer 1985, p. 6, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/SIG, Signature 1983-85 (accessed 27th February 2024).’

A few years after the last issue of The South Westerner was published, its successor Signature debuted on campus in 1983. As the Thatcher years progress, the paper includes more features with members of GaySoc, as well as features around London Pride in 1985 (fig. 2), and growing awareness surrounding the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic, including a cover feature from December 1986, which, notably, preceded the government’s own public information campaign in 1987.

Section 28 and Exeposé

Following the passing of Section 28 in 1988, the early issues of the university’s current student publication, Exeposé, reveal a pivotal decade in which LGBTQ+ visibility grows even as it is being legislated against. GaySoc evolves into Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Society, and the Guild comes to include both the elected position of Lesbian and Gay Rights Officer and an annual Lesbian and Gay Rights Week. For 1990’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Week, Exeposé listed the events planned by the Lesbian and Gay Officer as a cover feature. Alongside film screenings, the Week included a talk on Section 28 and education, highlighting the concern of students about the law and their university teaching (figs. 3 and 4). Notably, in figure 4, the placement of the week’s events also advertises a demonstration against the proposed Poll Tax of 1990, indicating the socio-political issues on the minds of Exeter’s students at this point.

Unknown, ‘Cover – It’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Week, Exeposé, 15th October 1990, p. 1, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé, 1990-1993 (accessed 19th March 2024).

Figure 4: Unknown, ‘Listings – Lesbian and Gay Rights Week’, Exeposé, 15th October 1990, p. 1, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé, 1990-1993 (accessed 19th March 2024).

The following year’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Awareness Week was covered in Exeposé with an article outlining its significance in the context of the restrictions of Section 28 and its impact (fig. 5). Throughout the 1990s, several recurring names within articles ensured that the frustration and inequality brought about by Section 28 was not forgotten. In 1993, lesbian, gay and bisexual students lobbied Parliament in a protest that made front-page news on the subsequent issue of Exeposé (fig. 6) and joined a candle-lit vigil in London urging the government to reduce the age of consent for gay men. A specific weekly Nightline evening for queer students also sought to provide a local helpline for Exeter’s students. By this point, too, it appears that the Safe Sex Ball was an event held on 1st December, World AIDS Day, with proceeds going to local charities such as the Devon HIV Association (fig. 7).

In the wider Exeter area, the 1997 General Election indicated a significant shift in attitudes evident in the articles published in student newspapers just a few decades prior. The election of the current Exeter Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw, was recorded as a victory over “bigotry”, and, as seen in figure 8, an Exeposé interview with Bradshaw offered a moment of reflection on the landscape of LGBTQ+ rights towards the end of the twentieth century.

Figure 5: Daron Oram, ‘Lesbian and Gay Awareness Week’, Exeposé, March 1991, n. pag., Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé, 1990-1993 (accessed 20th March 2024).

Figure 6: Rob Dicken, ‘Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Students Lobby Parliament’, Exeposé, 1st March 1993, p. 1, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé, 1990-1993 (accessed 20th March 2024).

Figure 7: Unknown, ‘Sex, Drugs, and HIV’, Exeposé, 28th November 1994, p. 1, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé 1994-1996 (accessed 25th March 2024).

Figure 8: Susie West, ‘A triumph for reason over bigotry’, Exeposé,12th May – 25th May 1997, p. 3, Exeter University Special Collections, Exeter University/EXEPOSE, Exeposé 1996-1998 (accessed 26th March 2024).

Only in 2003 was Section 28 fully repealed, with its ripples palpable long after its scrapping. The student publications held in the Special Collections on campus offer a vivid, important record of the effects of the changing landscape of LGBTQ+ lives and rights in the local area, and those at the university who were campaigning for equality, acceptance, and action within some of the darkest moments of recent national queer history. The papers allow us to see changes within the community as well, as GaySoc grew into the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Society by the 1990s, and ultimately into the LGBTQ+ Society that is with us today.

By Chloë Edwards (pronouns: she/her/hers)
Doctoral Researcher (Art History & Visual Culture)
Postgraduate Teaching Associate
Research Culture Assistant, HASS PGR Gender & Sexuality Research Network
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Exeter

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The Section 28 and its afterlives project is co-led by Helen Birkett, Chris Sandal-Wilson, and Hannah Young in the Department of Archaeology and History at the University of Exeter. As well as supporting archival research into the South West’s LGBTQ+ history, the project team are conducting oral histories with LGBTQ+ people in the South West across 2024 with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. You can find out more about the project, including how to share your own stories of Section 28, here.

If you are interested in exploring LGBTQ+ history, you can find out more about resources in the University of Exeter’s Heritage Collections in the  LGBTQ+ Research Resources guide.

Sir Harold Harding’s Chunnel Vision: A new Special Collections exhibition

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Case with four shelves displaying items from the Sir Harold Harding papersThis year marks the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Channel Tunnel and Special Collections is pleased to announce a new exhibition relating to investigations and studies in the 1950s-1960s for a channel crossing. The display case is located on Level 1 of the Forum Library, near the entrance from the staircase. This exhibition has been created by Special Collections staff with the assistance of student volunteer Vanessa Wong and features items from the papers of the civil engineer Sir Harold Harding, including reports, publications, articles and photographs. The exhibition is open to everyone and is expected to remain on display until summer 2024.

History of the Channel Tunnel

The tunnel, sometimes also referred to as the ‘Chunnel’ opened in May 1994, with the first freight train running in June and the first passenger service running in November 1994. It is the longest underwater rail tunnel in the world and is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland.

A crossing between France and Great Britain was first proposed back in 1802. In the more than 150 years that followed, studies and plans for a crossing – including for a bridge, a railway tunnel, and combined rail and road tunnels – were regularly put forward, welcomed on both sides of the channel, but then abandoned due to disagreements.

In 1957, the Channel Tunnel Study Group was formed from English, French and American interest. Its purpose was to research the engineering and economic possibilities of a Channel Tunnel. The British civil engineer Sir Harold Harding was one of the key consultants to the Group. He and his French counterpart Rene Malcor led the investigations, which included boreholes on land, a geophysical survey, and pumping out and examining the experimental shaft at Sangatte in 1958, as well as an investigation of seabed conditions by Wimpey Central Laboratory in 1959. The Channel Tunnel Project was abandoned in 1975, but interest in a fixed cross channel link continued. The final deal was legally agreed in 1986, and the Channel Tunnel was officially opened in 1994.

Biography of Sir Harold Harding

Sir Harold John Boyer Harding was born in Wandsworth, London, on 06 January 1900. He qualified as a civil engineer and his early work concentrated on underground railway development in and around London, notably the reconstruction of Piccadilly Circus Station (1926-1929).

During the Second World War, he was responsible for defence works and emergency repairs to underground damage in London. From the late 1950s until 1978, he worked as a consultant and arbitrator, including to the Channel Tunnel Study Group (1958-1970), and he was a member of the Aberfan disaster tribunal (1966-1967).

Harding was an active fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, serving as president in 1963-1964. He was the founder chairman of the British Tunnelling Society (1971-1973). In 1981, his autobiography ‘Tunnelling History and my Own Involvement’ was published by Golder Associates.  He died in Topsham, Devon, on 27 March 1986.

The Sir Harold Harding papers

The Sir Harold Harding papers are thought to have been originally donated to the University of Exeter’s Engineering department by Harding in c 1980, and they are now looked after by the University Library’s Special Collections. The collection of papers includes reports, documents, lantern slides, photographs, and prints relating to exploratory works mainly concerning the Channel Tunnel and Piccadilly Circus. The Sir Harold Harding papers are available for everyone to access – for research, enjoyment, or interest – in the Ronald Duncan (Special Collections) Reading Room in the Old Library. Find out more about visiting the Reading Room in our online guide.

For more information about the Sir Harold Harding papers, see our online archives catalogue at EUL MS 337 and EUL MS 337 add. 1.

A new exhibition: Poirot in the Archive 

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Agatha Christie exhibition in the Old Library

To mark Agatha Christie’s 132nd birthday, we are pleased to announce a new exhibition in the Old Library! The exhibition is open to everyone and can be viewed by entering the Old Library on Streatham Campus via the main entrance and walking straight ahead through the barriers. The display cases will be situated to your left. 

In this exhibition we delve into the archives to explore a range of responses to the character Poirot from individuals including Agatha Christie, Edmund Cork and Harold Ober (literary agents at Hughes Massie and Co. Ltd), publishers, film producers, and actors. 

This exhibition features items from the University of Exeter Heritage Collections. On display are letters and documents from the business papers of Agatha Christie’s literary agents; books from our Special Collections; and items from the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum collections. 

Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan (née Miller), the novelist known as Agatha Christie, was born in Torquay, Devon, on 15 September 1890. She became, and remains, the best-selling novelist of all time. She died on 12 January 1976 at her home in Winterbrook, Oxfordshire. 

Hercule Poirot, the famous fictional Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head, made his debut in Agatha Christie’s first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920. In total, he appeared in 33 novels, two plays, and more than 50 short stories. He made his final appearance in the novel Curtain, written in the early 1940s but not released until 1975, the last novel published by Agatha Christie before her death.

The exhibition is expected to remain on display until 06 March 2023.

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Library Champion Project Demystifying Archives and Manuscripts: A Journey Through the Special Collections

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Written by Chloe Cicely Chandler (MA English Literature)

 

In March of 2019 I somehow found myself within the British Library’s Manuscripts Reading Room with my eyes delighting over the sprawling handwriting within Coleridge’s notebooks. Ever an inspirer of wonder in me, it was magical to see his mind come alive; the thoughts seeming to burst onto the page with frantic imagination. I was especially fixated by Coleridge’s sketches of the Lake District that recorded the walks he had adventured on with his fellow Romantic visionaries: William and Dorothy Wordsworth. I often reflect on the fact that I touched the paper upon which Coleridge had scribed over 200 years ago. Now, it seems as if it were a distant, hazy dream. This was the first ever encounter I had with physical archival research, and one I would never forget. The research was undertaken during my English undergraduate degree for my third-year dissertation on altered states of consciousness in Romantic literature. In addition to Coleridge, I also focused on the writings of Sir Humphry Davy and Thomas De Quincey. This led me to take a separate journey where I also travelled to the Morrab Library in Penzance to learn more about Davy’s poetical and chemical experimentations from the archives in his Cornish hometown.

Both of these experiences were incredibly rewarding and put into perspective what I most enjoyed about studying English literature: that ability to peer into history through the words that individuals have left behind; as if the gap in time between the past and the present has been momentarily suspended. Such opportunities for research were the highlight of my entire degree – they made me feel more connected to the research I was conducting, and encouraged me throughout the difficult process of writing and editing my dissertation – providing my work with a greater sense of purpose.

Out of these explorations, I became very interested in the ways in which I could make the most of being an English MA student at a research-focused university and partake in opportunities to delve into the archives. This academic year, I joined as one of the Library Champions for English. As part of this role, I act as a liaison between library staff and students, passing along feedback, suggestions, and making book requests on behalf of students within my subject area. I had the opportunity to develop a project of my choosing relating to library services. Consequently, I decided it would be valuable to concentrate my project on the Special Collections based at the University of Exeter. Specifically, I wanted to consider the ways in which students could be made more aware of the unique primary resources available to them in order to increase their engagement with the archives during their degree.

 

Surveying Student Feedback

It was important for me to first gather insight from my fellow peers, so I put together a survey that was open to students from across the disciplines. This survey aimed to get a sense of general student knowledge of the archival services that the university offers, whilst also offering a space to make suggestions for how the Special Collections could be more integrated into the student experience. Although the responses ended up being mainly from Humanities students – with a majority from English undergraduates – their experiential highlights and suggestions were immensely helpful in terms of evaluating the current dialogue between students and the Special Collections.

Of those who had used the archives, their memories were very positive. One student relayed their enthusiasm as such: “I have only accessed the archives as part of a workshop on accessing them and it was really interesting! [The] Staff [were] great and very informative, I will definitely be in touch if there is something I need to access.” Speaking of the online catalogue, a student mentioned how valuable it was for their research: “I loved it, I accessed it almost daily to complete my assignments.” Others recall their use of the archives as: “[an] Intriguing and … exciting experience”; additionally: “I found the archivist very helpful and friendly and enjoyed the experience.”

The main areas that could improve student engagement with the Special Collections, as suggested by those surveyed, related to the following:

– Accessibility: student responses highlighted how the process can appear daunting, whilst other students were less aware of where to begin researching.

– Visibility: students highlighted a need to increase overall awareness of the collections through visual displays and marketing throughout the university. As a fellow student expressed: “I’d love for more people to handle and see these manuscripts.”

Following this initial feedback collection from my student cohort, I wanted to get a more informed perspective of the process behind performing archival research: this required me to find archival works of interest from the catalogue and then arrange a viewing of them.

 

The Process

As a starting place, the Collection Highlights page is especially helpful as it presents intriguing items within the university’s collection which you can then search for on the Archives catalogue, or use as a springboard for other research ideas. My personal interests for my MA dissertation relate to Romantic and Gothic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I am also interested in kindred areas such as the supernatural and folkloric. From our discussions, the Special Collections team gave me some fantastic suggestions to consider based on these research topics.

Of particular interest to me was the Theo Brown Collection that comes with its own helpful collection guide. Brown was a renowned folklore researcher and Research Fellow within the Philosophy and History Departments at the University of Exeter. Her immense research collection has been in the university’s archive since her death in 1993. Brown had a particular focus on folklore rooted in the South West of England, and, as an individual born and raised here, this sparked my interest. From within the vast collection, I needed to specify particular items, each of which is given a name relating to the overarching topics they contain. I finally decided upon the boxes that covered ‘Fringe Lore and UFOs’, ‘Guising and Hobby Horse’, and ‘Devon and West Country witches and witchcraft’. In addition, there was a fascinating object under the Rare books and maps section that I felt compelled to see as a Gothic researcher: a 1st issue, 1st edition of Bram Stoker’s legendary Gothic novel Dracula from 1897 housed within the Lloyd Collection. This edition is renowned for its strikingly coloured cover. As one of my favourite literary works, I was delighted to hear that the university had such an item available for viewing.

When I went about making my request via the Visiting Heritage Collections webpage, I first had to find the necessary codes for the Collections, which you can search for on the archive database: archival works have a title and MS number; books have a title and call number; journals have a title and volume/issue number. After making my request, I received an email promptly confirming my reading room booking. Before attending my booking, I read up on the handling procedures laid out in the Special Collections handling guide which provided some really useful information about how different types of materials are to be treated. This was practically helpful when I was searching through Brown’s archive as it included an array of different materials, including many pictures, for which I needed gloves. One interesting piece of information which often surprises people is that, in most cases, when handling rare books, it is preferable for you to not wear gloves as this decreases your physical sensitivity to the material itself, making it more likely that you might damage it.

When I arrived at the Old Library on the day, I went over to the Special Collections desk to inform of my arrival. My selected items had already been prepared behind the desk for viewing and were promptly brought out. The items displayed within the Ronald Duncan Reading Room itself were instantly engaging. To one side was a writing desk that had belonged to the much-beloved author Daphne Du Maurier, which came as a wonderful surprise as I was able to sit near it whilst I researched. I had seen one of her writing desks only once before at the Jamaica Inn’s Smugglers Museum on Bodmin Moor. I was also particularly fond of the artworks on the back wall by the artist Leonard Baskin which depicted various birds, including a variety of crows – a favourite Gothic symbol of mine!

I first went about exploring Brown’s items: from memory, a news story she had collected that was immensely intriguing was about a so-called ‘witch bottle’ that had been discovered in a basement. The bottle, under examination, turned out to be filled with a concoction of items that suggested its use in a baneful, magical working, containing nails, human urine, and thorns, amongst other items. Although I had only engaged with a small part of the entire Theo Brown collection, I was amazed by how much was contained within each box and managed to spend the entire afternoon slot searching through an amalgam of pictures, newspaper clippings, and letters – how the time flew by! In light of this, I would suggest to potential Special Collection users to allow themselves ample time to view resources and not try to cram too much into one visit. Rather, take the time to enjoy researching and making notes. And, if needed, return for another visit.

Following this, I handled the 1st edition of Dracula, for which I was given a book snake weight and cushion to use, so that the spine and fragile pages would be supported. I was instantly amazed by the vivid yellow cover that adorned the book. The cover was made even more pronounced by the red lettering that spelt out the book’s title, as if written in blood; very befitting given the contents. There was something strangely modern about the book’s palette of colours that made it feel out of place for the time period in which it was written. The aesthetic choices made about the design seemed to highlight the very alluring nature of the work, presenting the book itself as a kind of fantastical object. I feel incredibly lucky to have been given the opportunity to handle these items from the Special Collection and shall remember the experience fondly.

 

Call For Archival Research

In recent years, I have found that research of both primary and secondary sources for assignments tends to be confined to online databases. And, although this is undeniably helpful in terms of providing greater access to works from other institutions and aiding in the search for specific terms, I find there is something inherently missing from this experience of research. When you are there in person, there is a certain magic and fascination that can be kindled, which is more difficult to attain through a digitised source. It puts you back in touch with the physical history of these sources – the feel and sensation of them – such things are often lost when searching purely within digitised collections. Whilst at university, we have the unique chance to use these resources which might otherwise be unavailable or more difficult to access were we not students.

I highly recommend my fellow students give the archives a go! You may not have a particular text or subject in mind for your research, which is completely fine; using the archives is actually a fantastic way to discover an area you might be interested in. It also incentivises you to produce more distinctly original research to present to your subject area. The archivists, with their expertise in the collection items, are also on hand to provide helpful suggestions, as they did in my case.

 

Future Prospects

In response to student feedback, the Special Collections team have been putting these suggestions into practice, such as, updating the website pages to make them more accessible and user-friendly. We are also planning some further collaborative projects to improve accessibility and visibility over the next academic year – so make sure to watch this space!

I would be delighted to hear from my peers: if you have any feedback or suggestions you would like to make with regards to the library services, including the Special Collections or book requests for English, please feel free to contact me at cc725@exeter.ac.uk. For more Library Champion information visit: Find your Library Champion – Library Champions – LibGuides at University of Exeter

 

Helpful Special Collection links

Main website: Special Collections | Special Collections | University of Exeter

Special Collection Highlights: Highlights | Special Collections | University of Exeter

LibGuides: Home – Archives and Special Collections – LibGuides at University of Exeter

Special Collections catalogue: Home Page (ex.ac.uk)

Handling Guide: Handling Materials – Archives and Special Collections – LibGuides at University of Exeter

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum: http://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/

Digital Collections: http://specialcollectionsarchive.exeter.ac.uk/collections/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UoEHeritageColl

 

‘My growing acceptance of myself as a gay man was freeing me as a writer’: A new display about the writer, David Rees

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Display of items from the David Rees Collection outside the Ronald Duncan Reading Room

To celebrate LGBT+ History Month in 2022, a new display featuring items from the University of Exeter’s Special Collections has been installed in the Old Library. The display explores themes around sexuality in the David Rees literary papers and book collection, including items such as book covers, manuscript and typescript drafts, and newspaper articles. The display is open to everyone and can be found by entering the Old Library on Streatham Campus via the main entrance, turning right at the barriers and walking down the corridor towards Seminar Room A/B. The display is located on the right outside the Ronald Duncan Reading Room.

David Rees (1936-1993)  

David Rees was an author, lecturer and reviewer, born in Surbiton. Previously married with two children, he came out as a gay man in 1974. In 1968, he moved to Exeter to take up the position of lecturer in Education at St Luke’s College, which merged with the University of Exeter in 1978. He remained at the University until 1984, when he retired early to write full-time. 

Rees was a prolific writer, producing more than thirty works between 1975 and 1993. He also regularly wrote literary reviews and articles for magazines and newspapers, including Gay News and Gay Times. He is best known as a writer of novels for children and young adults.

A common theme in David Rees’ fiction is sexuality, and many of his novels are about the experiences of gay teenage boys discovering and embracing their sexual identity. These novels were noteworthy amongst other young adult books of the 1970s and 1980s in their positive portrayal of gay sex, relationships and love. The novels Quintin’s Man (1976) and In the Tent (1979) were the first books for young adults in the UK to have central gay characters.

‘The Milkman’s On His Way’ by David Rees

In 1987, The Milkman’s On His Way (1982) sparked a nationwide debate on access to gay fiction for young people, after a student complained that the book wasn’t available in their school library. The book was subsequently banned from many school and public libraries in the UK. Due to its positive and detailed descriptions of gay sex, the book was also cited in Parliament during the Section 28 debates in 1988 (Section 28 of the Local Government Act was brought in to ‘prohibit the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities’). However, the archive shows that many other people – including librarians, teachers and young people – also spoke out in support of the book.

Sexuality remained an important theme in David Rees’ later works, many of which were written for an adult audience, including Watershed (1986) and Twos and Threes (1987). In 1985, David Rees was diagnosed as HIV positive. This influenced him to write the novel, The Wrong Apple (1987), a story about a young man who discovers he has AIDS and finds love and support from a new friend. In his autobiography Not For Your Hands (1992), Rees reflected on his experience of coming out in 1974, and the positive impact this had on his personal life and writing career, stating: ‘my growing acceptance of myself as a gay man was freeing me as a writer’.

David Rees lived and worked in Exeter for most of his life, and time and again the city and its history inspired his stories. In 1978, David Rees was awarded the Carnegie Medal for The Exeter Blitz. In his acceptance speech, Rees spoke of the importance of Exeter to his writing, stating: ‘I’m drawn to it, again and again, as to a magnet…I’m glad it’s The Exeter Blitz that has won the Carnegie; it’s a tribute to that other major influence on me, the place where I live and work’. At least six of David Rees’ stories were set in Exeter, including Quintin’s Man (1976), The Ferryman (1977), Risks (1977), The Exeter Blitz (1978), The House that Moved (1978) and In the Tent (1979). 

From 1985, David Rees lived with HIV and AIDS. He continued writing and publishing until 1992. He died in 1993. 

David Rees Collection

Books by David Rees in the Reserve Collection

The University of Exeter Special Collections holds the David Rees Collection, which
includes literary papers as well as Rees’ own copies of his published works. The collection was bequeathed to St Luke’s Library in 1993. The literary papers include original manuscript and typescript drafts of his novels, short stories, poems, reviews, articles, speeches and interviews; and correspondence, reviews and clippings relating to his works.

The literary papers of David Rees have been catalogued under the reference number EUL MS 271 and can be browsed on the online archives catalogue. 

Books by David Rees are held within our Reserve Collection and are catalogued under the classmark Reserve 828.9/REE-9. You can browse the titles in the library catalogue. 

Items from the David Rees Collection are available for everyone to access, research and enjoy in our reading room.

Further resources 

You can find out more about more the David Rees Collection and other research resources relating to LGBTQ+ history held at the University of Exeter Special Collections in our online guide at: https://libguides.exeter.ac.uk/archives/lgbtq-research-resources 

Papers of Sir Norman Lockyer – Now Available Online

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University of Exeter Special Collections are pleased to announce that the papers of Astronomer, Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer are now available to consult online as part of Wiley Digital Archive’s British Association for the Advancement of Science Database (Collections on the History of Science: 1830-1970). Students at University of Exeter (and other institutions with the relevant subscription) can access the digitised material through their institutional login. A free trial subscription is also available at https://www.wileydigitalarchives.com/british-association-for-the-advancement-of-science/

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (1836-1920), astronomer, was one of the pioneers of astronomical spectroscopy and became one of the most influential astronomers of his time. His main interest was sun spectroscopy, which led him to discover helium independently of Pierre Janssen, a scientist who posited its existence in the same year. He was born in Rugby in 1836, the only son of a surgeon-apothecary, Joseph Hooley Lockyer and was educated privately in England and he also studied languages on the Continent. At the age of twenty-one became a clerk in the War Office, and married Winifred James in the following year. He developed interests in astronomy and journalism, and in 1863 began to give scientific papers to the Royal Astronomical Society. He proceeded to push back the frontiers of spectroscopy and science, discovering the theoretical existence of helium (a chemical not then known on Earth), and was awarded a medal by the French Academy of Sciences in the same year for developing a new technique to observe solar prominences at times other than eclipses.

Sir Norman Lockyer as Science Editor of The Reader

In 1869 Lockyer founded the journal ‘Nature’, which he edited until a few months before his death, and which remains to this day a major resource for international scientific knowledge. In 1870 he was appointed secretary to the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction, which over the next five years reported on scientific education and resulted in the government setting up a laboratory of solar physics at South Kensington. To further this work, Lockyer was transferred from the War Office to the Science and Art Department at South Kensington in 1875. Here he organised an international exhibition of scientific apparatus, as well as establishing the loan collection which eventually formed the nucleus of the collections of the Science Museum.

Throughout this period, Lockyer continued to be active in astronomical observations and in spectroscopic studies in the laboratory of the College of Chemistry; he also wrote several books on astronomy and spectral analysis. Lockyer also studied the correlations between solar activity and weather, and developed interests in meteorology. In 1878 he was given charge of the solar-physics work then being carried out at South Kensington, being made Director of the Solar Physics Laboratory. Lockyer also became a lecturer in the Normal School Science in 1881, and became the first professor of astronomical physics in 1887, a post which he held until 1901. (In 1890 the School was renamed the Royal College of Science, which later became part of the Imperial College of Science and Technology). Lockyer continued his work as Director of the Solar Physics Laboratory until the laboratory moved to Cambridge, with the original laboratory site being used in part in the building of the Science Museum.

Kensington Telescope at Hill Observatory

After retiring to Devon with his wife, Lockyer established a solar observatory at Sidmouth on the suggestion of Francis McLean, the son of the astronomer and philanthropist Frank McLean. This observatory, begun in 1912, was set up for astrophysical observations, and was originally called the Hill Observatory. Following the completion of building work at the site at Salcombe Regis, near Sidmouth, Devon, solar work commenced in 1913 using the Kensington telescope which had been brought from the observatory in South Kensington, London. The Observatory was officially established as a charitable trust in 1916, and was renamed in Lockyer’s honour by his family after he died in Salcombe Regis, Devon, in August 1920. The Lockyer family continued to play an important role in the running of the observatory. Following a generous endowment from Robert Mond, the Observatory was established as a centre of astronomical excellence, and later became The Norman Lockyer Observatory Corporation of the University of Exeter (University College of the South West of England until 1955). The principal telescopes were donated by Lockyer and by Francis McLean, who had originally suggested the building of the observatory. A further telescope was donated by Robert Mond in 1932. The observatory is still running today. 

The collection that has been digitised includes the personal correspondence and some of the research papers of Sir Norman Lockyer. The ‘Marconi telegram’ is also included, notifying Sir Norman Lockyer of the first Atlantic transmission using Ether waves, sent from Marconi at Mullion, Cornwall, to Sir Norman Lockyer of the Solar Physics Observatory, South Kensington, London, 12 January 1903, with copy telegram on reverse to Marconi from Norman Lockyer confirming receipt. Amongst the research papers are two boxes of eclipse notebooks 1870-1911, lecture notes 1870-1898, notes about articles, papers relating to the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction 1871-1877, papers relating to the transfer of the Solar Physics Laboratory to Cambridge 1911-1912, and other papers relating to education, lectures and addresses. Other personal papers include those arising from his being awarded honorary degrees and his attendance at public functions.

Newly catalogued: the Maureen Baker-Munton collection of papers relating to Daphne du Maurier (EUL MS 462)

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We are delighted to announce that recently-acquired archive material of the novelist Daphne du Maurier has been catalogued and is now available to access for research. The collection comprises literary, personal and family papers that were created or compiled by Daphne du Maurier, and which for many years had been looked after by her close friend, Maureen Baker-Munton. At an auction held at Rowley’s Auction House in Ely on 27 April 2019, items from the collection were sold, and the University of Exeter was successful in purchasing several auction lots. The acquired material complements and expands the already existing collections relating to Daphne du Maurier held at the University of Exeter Special Collections.

Archivist with items from the collection

What makes this material different to some of our other Daphne du Maurier collections are the curatorial elements added by Maureen Baker-Munton. Many of the papers are annotated by Maureen with names, memories or explanations, which not only add extra contextual information about the items, but also provide insight into the close friendship between Daphne and Maureen.

Maureen Luschwitz was born in India in 1922. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, she joined the armed forces in India, through which she met Frederick Browning (more commonly referred to as ‘Boy’ or ‘Tommy’), the husband of Daphne du Maurier. He employed her as his personal assistant and she continued working for him when they returned to England In July 1946. Maureen also became a part-time secretary to Daphne du Maurier, and from this initially work-based relationship, a close and lifelong friendship grew. In 1955, Maureen married Monty Baker-Munton (also referred to as ‘Bim’) with whom she had one child. In the 1970s, Daphne du Maurier asked Monty to be her literary executor and Maureen to be her power of attorney. They supported and cared for Daphne du Maurier until her death in 1989. Maureen Baker-Munton died on 03 January 2013, aged 90. (Source: ‘Maureen Baker-Munton (1922-2013) – a short essay inspired by the sale of her archive of Daphne du Maurier related material’ by Ann Willmore (2019), available at https://www.dumaurier.org/menu_page.php?id=147)

Over the past few months, the collection has been catalogued, with each file or item receiving a unique reference number and a contents description on our online catalogue. This will enable the material to be much more easily searched and accessed for research now and in the future. Although any original arrangement of the material was lost through its sale at auction, our collection of items seemed to naturally fall into the three distinct sections: literary papers, personal papers and family papers. You can find the hierarchy of the collection on our online archives catalogue.

The section of literary papers includes drafts of some of Daphne du Maurier’s novels, short stories and scripts. A particularly interesting item is a manuscript notebook containing plot notes for the novels ‘Le Remplaçant’ [‘The Scapegoat’], ‘The House on the Strand’ and ‘The Flight of the Falcon’. Also included in the section of literary papers is a fascinating assortment of draft poems, which include some written by Daphne du Maurier when she was in her early twenties, as well as others that she wrote in the final decade of her life. Drafts of forewords, articles and essays by Daphne du Maurier are also present, as well as a typescript draft speech written by Daphne du Maurier for Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas Broadcast in 1957. Intriguingly, some elements of this draft appear to have been incorporated into the Queen’s Christmas message that was broadcast via television. This section also includes papers relating to the lawsuit brought against Daphne du Maurier in the 1940s due to claimed parallels between ‘Rebecca’ and a short story and novel by Edwina Lewin MacDonald. These papers complement an item from another of our collections of material by Daphne du Maurier: the ‘Rebecca Notebook’ (EUL MS 144/1/1/4), which is stamped as having been presented as an exhibit in court in 1947.

The section of personal papers mainly comprises correspondence and items of ephemera. These include a folder of 40 letters written and sent by Daphne du Maurier to Maureen and Monty Baker-Munton between 1947 and 1965. The correspondence in this file covers the period from when Maureen Luschwitz began working as personal assistant to Frederick Browning and as part-time secretary to Daphne du Maurier in the 1940s, through to 1965, by which time the relationship between the du Maurier- Browning family and the Baker-Munton family had developed into a close friendship. The letters from Daphne du Maurier concern a range of personal matters, including daily life, family, friends, travel and health.

The third and final section comprises family papers concerning or created by various ancestors and relatives of Daphne du Maurier. These include original letters from her paternal grandfather, the artist and writer George du Maurier, to his mother, Ellen du Maurier; to his future wife, Emma Wightwick; and to his friend and fellow artist, Thomas Armstrong. Also included within the section are a small number of papers of Muriel du Maurier, née Beaumont, a stage actress and mother of Daphne du Maurier. Daphne du Maurier’s maternal relatives featured very little in our du Maurier collections prior to this accession, so we are particularly pleased that this collection includes papers and photographs of Muriel du Maurier, Muriel’s mother, Emily Beaumont, and her sister, Sybil ‘Billie’ Beaumont. The family papers also include one box of photographs of Daphne du Maurier and her relatives, dating from c 1880s to 1960s.

It has been a great pleasure and a privilege for me to catalogue this collection, and especially to get to know Daphne du Maurier and her friends and family through the form of time travel that only archives enable! The Special Collections team warmly invite anyone interested in working on this collection to get in touch. We look forward to seeing how the collection will be used and the avenues of research it might open up.

Descriptions of all the material in this collection can be browsed via our online catalogue and accessed in our reading room by advance appointment (at least 48 hours’ notice). You can find more information about visiting us and how to book an appointment here. Please note that due to copyright restrictions, photography or copying of the material is not possible without prior permission from the copyright holder.

By Annie, Project Archivist

Transcribing the Letters of John Jarmain: reflections on a remote internship project

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Earlier this year, Special Collections launched its first remote internship for University of Exeter students. Unable to run our usual in-person work experience programme, and knowing that another lockdown at the start of 2021 was highly likely, we were pleased to offer an opportunity for students to gain valuable archive experience whilst working from home.

The collection we chose for this remote internship was the Letters of John Jarmain (EUL MS 413). William John Fletcher Jarmain (1911-1944) was a novelist and poet. He served throughout the Second World War as a gunnery officer with the 51st Highland Division during their campaigns in North Africa and Sicily. He took part in the D-Day landing and was killed in action on 26 June 1944. The collection comprises 120 manuscript letters that he sent home to his wife Beryl between June 1942 and November 1943. 

EUL MS 413/1/66 – Aerogram dated 10 March 1943

Digitised images of all of the letters are available to view online through our Digital Collections website, making them ideal for our interns to access and transcribe from home. Once proofread, the transcripts produced by the interns on this project will be uploaded to the website to sit alongside the digitised letters, enabling letters of interest to be more easily identified, accessed and understood.

We would like to take this moment to thank our interns, Beth Howell and Ruby, for their hard work, diligence and enthusiasm for this project. Through a combined effort, they recently completed the transcription of all 120 letters – an amazing achievement! Below you can read their reflections on the project.

Reflections by Beth Howell

Transcribing the letters of a person is always a very involved experience, and working on John Jarmain’s war-time correspondence has proven to be no exception. However, perhaps because Jarmain was so engaged with the process of writing, (often demonstrating himself to be an almost obsessive editor of his own poetry), he always seems to write with a real sense of how his words might be read and interpreted in the future, making his letters a real privilege to read. Though most of his correspondence is addressed to his wife, Beryl, he often appears to imagine a reader beyond her, documenting the world around him with a real sense of capturing the present moment. His letters are therefore not only interesting because of what they reveal about his poetic practice, but also the landscapes he found himself in, the relationships he fostered, and his hopes and anxieties for a future after the war.

My favourite element of Jarmain’s writing, though, was probably the way in which he balanced larger concerns with little details. His ability to find joy in the spaces around him, even though the vision of those landscapes necessarily meant his separation from home (and, of course, were imbued with the ever-present anxieties of potential battles), is really heartening and beautiful to read. He loved birds, and many of his letters are preoccupied with identifying species from a little bird book he bought and carried around with him. (Though I have to say that deciphering rare specimens from his sometimes quite hastily-scribbled writing presented a few challenges- I had certainly never heard of a rufous warbler before!)

EUL MS 413/1/85 – Letter dated 30 April 1943, in which Jarmain writes about birds, including the rufous warbler (highlighted)

I also admired his confidence in informing his wife that he had fallen in (platonic) love with various women during his time in service- including Yone May, the subject of one of his poems. Jarmain presents a tangible picture of contemporary technologies (or quite the opposite), which affect his writing in a very material way- he finds himself scribbling in pencil, writing by candlelight in the wee hours, hastily penning an aerogram when he knows the post is leaving soon. He laments his ability to construct suitable diagrams of views and barracks, continues to marvel at unexpectedly quick postal deliveries, and to agonise when the opposite proves to be the case. His letters are a fascinating and absorbing insight into his life away- checked only by the knowledge that his observations would be tragically cut short. Jarmain died, killed by a fragment of mortar shell, on Saturday 26th June, 1944.

EUL MS 413/1/19 Letter dated 11 October 1942, next to transcript by Beth Howell

Reflections by Ruby

It hardly seems right to call this internship “work”. Work refers to something laborious, something that has to be done, but I found transcribing John Jarmain’s letters delightful. It saddens me that the World War II poets don’t receive the same attention as the World War I poets. Jarmain, though brilliant and sensitive, is far from a household name and does not even have a poetry collection currently in print. This is what makes me so genuinely honoured to have been involved in this project, typing up his letters, so that we can start to make Jarmain’s literature more accessible for more people. I hope that, going forward, people will read these letters and be touched in the same way that I was. 

This internship has shown me that there is a big difference between reading for pleasure and reading to transcribe. Transcribing Jarmain’s letters has forced me to read them carefully, sensitively and attentively. I have had to pay attention to punctuation, names and form which I might not otherwise have paid much attention to. When I’ve read letters from authors in the past, I don’t tend to focus on people who are off-handedly mentioned (cousins, distant friends, colleagues etc.), and only really focus on those they are closest to. However, when writing up these letters I had to pay attention to every name — zooming in to make sure that I got every surname right — and, in doing so, I noticed certain people who popped up time and time again (his friend, Harry, for example). Jarmain’s handwriting also means that it’s easy to mistake a semicolon for an exclamation point. At first glance, his semicolons can look like exclamation points, but when you look more closely, they’re usually not. If I were reading these letters at a glance, I would think that he was just heavy-handed with exclamation points, but this project showed me that he is not, and that he actually uses exclamation points quite sparingly. Over the course of the internship, I became more familiar with Jarmain’s writing style and more attentive to quirks in his handwriting. For example, when writing “a”, he tends to attach it to the word in front (i.e. if he says “a ship”, he will write “aship”). This led to some tenuous guessing at the start of the project; however, I was familiar with this by the end, and found transcribing his letters much easier. 

EUL MS 413/1/14 – Aerogram dated 28 September 1942, mentioning his friend Harry (highlighted)

The internship showed me how important it is to read letters attentively and slowly — to savour them and their images and their kindnesses. This is what Jarmain’s wife, Beryl, would have done, and so we perhaps get closer to the experience of these letters when we read in this way. Having to read Jarmain slowly was probably my favourite part about and, as a consequence of having done this, I feel like I know him better than I otherwise would have done. 

One particularly striking part of Jarmain’s letters is just how little he refers to the actual events of war. He hardly talks about what his troops are doing, and any danger they might be in. Rather, he documents domestic experiences — for example, how he spent his time on leave, or how he goes swimming in the morning before starting work, or a joke told by one of the men. Jarmain separates himself from his identity as the “soldier” and presents himself as a real man, the same husband to whom Beryl waved goodbye. Though this is humbling to see, it also points to the separation between war and home which he documents in his poem ‘El Alemein’. The separation between Jarmain as husband and soldier in these letters makes the dramatic irony of his death all the more upsetting. Reading the letters, I knew that he would never come home and safely settle back into domestic life. In one of his last aerograms (EUL MS 413/1/153), he writes of the Christmas presents he plans to give them, clinging to the possibility that the war will end soon and he will be home with Beryl and Janet-Susan. When the letters abruptly stop, there is no warning and, since he was so secretive about his life as a soldier when writing to Beryl, it seems strangely incongruous that he could have been killed in war. 

EUL MS 413/1/33 – Aerogram dated 8 December 1942: draft of poems ‘For Alamein’

Possibly my favourite parts to transcribe were his descriptions of nature — and, in particular, his descriptions of Italy in his final aerogram (EUL MS 413/1/154): “Away to the right, tier upon tier lit in streaks of sun and shade and clotted with white clustering towns, were the hills of Italy across the strait. In England you cannot imagine such beauty, such a scene”. You can feel the wonder in his voice here and the sheer extent of the view he relays. These nature descriptions are occasionally shown in his poems, but only fleetingly, and I enjoyed reading this different writing style from him. It is also so illuminating to see the poems embedded within these letters because the poems will often refer to images he’s already described for Beryl. For example, in letter one (EUL MS 413/1/1), he writes that he “was struck suddenly by willows, English willows, how they stand in rows like thick-handled powder-puffs, grey-green in the evening”. Then, in a poem in letter two (EUL MS 413/1/2), he writes that the train “Passed willows greyly bunching to the moon”. In this, we can see his poems as snapshots of real, personal experience. Indeed, the fact that they are embedded within letters shows just how intimate and personal they are, which can and should encourage us to read them contextually in new ways. 

Ruby has very kindly recorded herself reading John Jarmain’s first letter (EUL MS 413/1/1). Click on the play button below to listen to the recording. 

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Cataloguing the Cecil Harmsworth Archive

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Following on from cataloguing two very large archives – the Syon Abbey archive and the Common Ground archive – my new challenge in January 2021 was to catalogue a much smaller but no less compelling archive: the archive of Liberal MP, Cecil Bishopp Harmsworth (EUL MS 435).

Archivist with diaries in the Cecil Harmsworth archive

Cecil Harmsworth was a politician, businessman and the first Baron Harmsworth of Egham. Born in 1869, his political career was launched when he became the Liberal MP for Droitwich in 1906, a position that he held until 1910. He then went on to become MP for Luton between 1911 and 1922. Between 1915 and 1922, he also held several junior ministerial positions within the British government. In 1939, Harmsworth was elevated to the House of Lords and gained the title of 1st Baron Harmsworth of Egham, Surrey. He was also involved in his family’s media empire, and published several of his own literary works, including ‘A Little Fishing Book’ (1942). In 1911, Cecil Harmsworth bought Dr Samuel Johnson’s house in Gough Square, London, which he restored and presented to the nation in 1929. Cecil Harmsworth married Emilie Maffet, with whom he had three children. He died aged 78 in 1948.

EUL MS 435/2/5 – An election favour in the Liberal and Conservative Coalition colours, made for the General Election in 1918

Cecil Harmsworth had no direct links to South West England (though he visited Exeter and Devon several times during his life, as recorded in his diaries), but when his archive came up for sale at auction in 2008, the University of Exeter’s History department purchased Harmsworth’s extensive diaries, and then subsequently acquired further documents that had remained unpurchased at the original sale. Professor Andrew Thorpe and Professor Richard Toye edited Cecil Harmsworth’s early diaries, which were published in Parliament and Politics in the Age of Asquith and Lloyd George: the Diaries of Cecil Harmsworth, MP, 1909–1922 in 2016. The diaries and accompanying archive material were then kindly deposited with the University of Exeter Special Collections. Though incomplete, the archive includes a fascinating range of papers that provide valuable insight into Cecil Harmsworth’s personal and professional life.

The archive comprises 27 boxes of material created during Cecil Harmsworth’s lifetime, as a well as some papers added by subsequent family members following his death in 1948. It has been catalogued into the following sections: diaries; correspondence and papers; speeches and literary papers; financial papers; legal and property papers; family papers; photographs; printed material; and papers relating to the Cecil Harmsworth archive. You can explore the archive by clicking on the image below.

The highlight of the archive are without a doubt the collection of diaries kept by Cecil Harmsworth between 1900 and 1948. Harmsworth was a keen angler and his diary began as a record of his fishing trips. Following his election as an MP in the House of Commons in 1906, his diaries became increasingly political. Harmsworth’s diaries are full of observations and notes on domestic and foreign policy, parliamentary colleagues, and his political duties as an MP. In addition, Harmsworth lived through several key historical events, including the Easter Rising in Ireland and the First and Second World War. Other notable features of his diaries are descriptions of family life, travel around the world, involvement in the Garden Cities movement, and the restoration of Dr Samuel Johnson’s House in London.

EUL MS 435/1/1/1 – Cecil Harmsworth’s diary for 1900 is the first in the series

The archive also includes five boxes of political, business-related and personal correspondence and papers. These include papers relating to his career as a Liberal MP in the House of Commons, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Department under H.H. Asquith (1915), as a member of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat under David Lloyd George (1917-1919), and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Liberal-Conservative Coalition government (1918-1922). This section of the archive also includes a scrapbook which, though only partially complete and containing mostly loose items, provides a fascinating glimpse into life as an MP in the House of Commons in the early 20th century. It includes letters from the Chief Whips, dinner menus, press clippings, and items of ephemera, such as tickets to the opening of the Parliament.

EUL MS 435/2/14 – Scrapbook of items relating to the House of Commons, 1906-1922

Though the archive predominantly comprises material created or compiled by Cecil Harmsworth, it also includes some material relating to other members of his family, including his wife, Emilie. Her name appears regularly in Cecil Harmsworth’s diaries, but I was particularly pleased that the archive also includes some of Emilie’s own papers. These include several files of correspondence, as well as papers relating to her training and qualification as a nurse during the First World War.

EUL MS 435/6/3 – Emilie Harmsworth’s papers relating to nursing

The Cecil Harmsworth archive is now fully catalogued and available to browse on our online catalogue and to access in our reading room.

By Annie, Project Archivist