Broadlands Archives Fundraising Campaign Successfully Completed
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.
A major fundraising appeal was launched in November 2009 to raise £2,850,000 to purchase the collection from the Trustees of the Broadlands Archives. The University is pleased to announce that the target was reached at the start of June 2010, with a grant of £1,993,760 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. It has been especially heartening to us to have received many pledges of support and encouragement from a wide range of individuals, organisations and trusts, which we greatly appreciate: thank you to all who have worked with us to secure the future of this important collection.
Professor Chris Woolgar
Head of Special Collections
University of Southampton Library
November 2009
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