Broadlands Archives Campaign
For more than 20 years, the University Library has held in its Special Collections Division the Broadlands Archives. The archive contains some 4,500 boxes, dating from the sixteenth century to the present, centred on the Temple (Palmerston), Ashley, Cassel and Mountbatten families. It is an exceptional collection, including many materials of the first rank for the history of the UK and its relations with its colonies and foreign powers. The Mountbatten papers are effectively the foundation archive for the modern states of India and Pakistan, and in addition illuminate Britain’s first major act of post-war decolonisation; the papers of the third Viscount Palmerston include some 40,000 letters, many from his private correspondence as Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister; and the diaries of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, reformer and philanthropist, are one of the great monuments to social progress in Victorian England. There is wide coverage of politics, diplomacy, military, literary and cultural affairs, besides materials for the Ashley and Temple estates in Hampshire and for Ireland A fuller description of the archive can be found here.
The Trustees of the Broadlands Archives have determined to sell the collection and have offered it to the University. The expectation is that if our negotiations fail, the collection will be sold at auction, and may well be broken up and dispersed, with many parts not finding places in public repositories. The net price is a substantial one, £2.85 million, and we believe we have 6 months to complete the transaction. The University is undertaking a major fund-raising campaign to assure the future of the collection. It is working with funding bodies including the National Heritage Memorial Fund, but will need to raise considerable sums from other sources.
web.jpg "Letter from Queen Victoria")
We would very much appreciate your support in acquiring this for the University and in the national interest. If you would like to contribute, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail (C.M.Woolgar@soton.ac.uk) or at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. Donation forms and the campaign brochure are attached. This is an international campaign for one of the most important collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century archives: you can also help by publicising the collection further and by suggesting connections and links that may help us promote the cause. I very much look forward to hearing from you.
Professor Chris Woolgar
Head of Special Collections
University of Southampton Library
November 2009
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