Subject Guide: History: Archives and Special Collections

Archives and Special Collections has rich holdings in medieval manuscripts and incunables covering topics such as politics, theology, literature, law, history and art, and including breviaries, books of hours, missals and graduals in especially the Cosin Manuscripts, highlighted by the works of Lawrence of Durham (Cosin MS V.iii.1) and Symeon of Durham’s History of the Church of Durham (Cosin MS V.ii.6), and the Ushaw College Manuscripts. ASC also provides access to arguably the most extensive surviving medieval monastic library in this country, that of the cathedral, containing chronicles and other original historical works, many now digitised. Furthermore, dating back to the eleventh century, the Durham Cathedral Archive is the most comprehensive archive to survive at any English Cathedral. It provides an invaluable resource for the study of medieval economy and society as well as the business affairs of the Church, and thereby the wider history of the realms of England and Scotland, and the papacy. The picture that the archive provides of the later medieval North East, in particular, is also complimented by the estate archive of the Bishopric of Durham of this period and the ecclesiastical archive of the Diocese of Durham.

Many of the significant items from this period, such as cathedral accounts and bishops’ registers, have been published in particularly the Surtees Society volumes, held in the Local Collection. Printed calendars of records of the government of the area by the bishops’ Palatinate of Durham administration of the same period are held on the open shelves in the Search Room at 5 The College.

The nationally designated library of John Cosin, bishop of Durham (1595-1672), built up during his time in Durham and Cambridge before and during the Civil War and then in France during the Commonwealth, includes many contemporary works and a large number of unique French books not in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is housed in its original contemporary purpose-built building. The collection also includes volumes of the bishop’s letters illustrating the interweaving of personal, estate and national affairs in the bishop’s life. The collections also include the slightly earlier library of Lord William Howard (1563-1640) with some commonplace books of Lord Henry Howard, earl of Northampton (1540-1614).

The Durham Cathedral Archive and further estate records of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, along with records relating to the Diocese of Durham, including the records of the Halmote Courts on the bishops’ estates, and the records of the Palatinate of Durham administration not removed to the National Archives, all enable research into many aspects of the historical development of the North East at this period. One collection also augments this, and facilitates detailed connection with individuals and families of Co Durham and Northumberland from the 16th century onwards, namely the Durham Probate Records, now largely accessible online.

The Bamburgh Library, built up by 18^th century members of the Sharp at the castle on the Northumberland coast, enhances considerably the printed material available for studying many historical aspects of this period. The collection also comprises manuscripts which include 17th and 18th century commonplace books, private correspondence and book collecting.

Family papers which detail this period include the Backhouse papers, the Clavering of Greencroft papers, the Baker Baker papers, the Wharton papers and the Derwentwater papers at Ushaw College.

Further book collections of note are the Kellett Collection with 16^th and 17^th century European medical treatises, and the libraries of the 17^th and 18^th century female religious communities of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre, then based in Belgium, and the Poor Clares of both Woodchester and Darlington, and the English College at Lisbon held at Ushaw.

There are also the works of the historians, or antiquaries, of the time, including especially the Mickletons and Spearmans, lawyers in the Palatinate courts keen to establish the historical basis for the rights and privileges that they enforced in those courts in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. 

Many of the major British historical developments of the 19^th century are reflected in the extensive Earl Grey Family papers, especially those of Charles, 2^nd Earl Grey (1764-1845), prime minister in 1832 at the time of both the Great Reform Act and the establishment of the university. These papers are complemented by those of John Lambton, 1^st Earl of Durham (1792-1840), also heavily involved in the Reform Act, and in relations with Russia, Canada and New Zealand. For political developments of more recent times, the papers of Jack Lawson are an invaluable resource.

Away from political history, there is much on a great variety of historical genres, including Social History, ranging from such as the archives of the Cremation Society of Great Britain to the more local Spennymoor Settlement. Related are the archives of various Catholic female religious orders providing much information on women’s Social History both in the orders themselves and also in the work they did in local communities all round the country, including the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Evron, the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception based at Braintree, the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus, and the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre.

In fact, the wider history of Catholic society in this country can now be explored in a growing range of collections including such as the Catholic Women’s League, the Young Christian Students and Secular Societies. Anglican Church History is reflected, besides the Diocesan Archives, in the papers of various of the eminent bishops of Durham, namely William van Mildert (1765-1836), Joseph Lightfoot (1828-1889), Ian Ramsey (1915-1972). Quaker History can also be studied through the libraries of the Quakers of both Sunderland and Newcastle, and there are also books from the oldest Methodist chapel in the country at Newbiggin in Teesdale in the general SC collection.

The open access printed Local Collection in the Barker Research Library is a tremendous resource for all the North East, including Co Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Cumberland, covering all aspects of the political, economic, social, sporting and transport history of the area, ranging from big area and county histories to studies of individuals, churches, theatres, teams or railway lines. As well as many books and pamphlets, there are also publications of the various local history and record societies, and a number of local newspapers are available on microfilm. Backing them up within the archives, are the papers of local historians, especially Robert Blair (1845-1923), Jack Gibby (1902-1989) and Roy Hudleston (1905-1992), the extensive collection of local ephemera of Geoffrey Milburn (d2006), and the archives of the Surtees Society and the Archaeological and Antiquarian Society of Northumberland and Durham.

The visual historical record is also strong in the collections with many representations of the city of Durham and its environs from the later 19^th century onwards in the photographic collections of especially Edis and Fillingham, as well as a miscellaneous series of photograph albums.

There is a rich and extensive collection of material relating to Africa, especially Sudan and South Sudan. The nationally designated Sudan Archive is a huge collection of private, semi-official and official papers, photographs, printed material, cinefilms, maps and artefacts from c.1880 onwards covering Sudan, South Sudan, and wider East Africa.

The Prince Abbas Hilmi II papers comprise the official and personal correspondence of the last Khedive of Egypt, from the period of his khedivate, 1892-1914, as well as his life in exile from 1914 to 1944. The university’s own archive includes much on the development of higher education in Sierra Leone in its college of Fourah Bay, affiliated to the university 1875-1968 along with documentation on higher education in the wider area of West Africa.

The Earl Grey Family Papers are a major source for 19th and 20th century political, colonial, and diplomatic history. Of particular relevance are the papers of Albert Henry George (1851-1917), 4th Earl Grey (Governor-General of Canada) and Evelyn Baring (1903-1973), 1st Baron Baring of Howick (India, South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya). Also significant in this area are the papers of Malcolm MacDonald (1901-1981; Canada, Malaya, India, Kenya), Sir Donald Hawley (1921-2008; Sudan, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, Iraq, Oman, Malaysia), E.T. Richmond (1874-1955; Egypt, Palestine), the Wylde Family (especially William 1819-1909, East and West Africa), Lt.-Col. T. Tunstall-Behrens (1878-1939, boundaries in Uganda, Peru-Bolivia and Austria-Italy.

The collections also contain much material dealing with the wider non-Anglophone world, including the Oriental Manuscripts, a very diverse collection, including literary manuscripts, religious, mathematical, astronomical, astrological and medical texts, grammatical and other linguistic material, a Taoist weather manual, correspondence, diaries and photographs in a wide range of languages from Arabic to Urdu.

The Louis Allen Collection papers relating to the research of Louis Allen (1922-1991), Japanese scholar and military historian, including original documents collected during Allen's own war service in the Far East. The papers of Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) are of a similar period, and wide-ranging in their scope and interest including Indonesia during WW2, various parts of Southern Africa, and the British political scene in the later 20^th century. For students of the more recent development of Iran, the collection of Ann Lambton is invaluable, and the era of the revolution in Iran in the later 1970s features much in the collections of the journalist Vahe Petrossian and the Durham anthropologist David Brooks. J.S. Blackett’s letters (Add.MS. 835) provide much detail on the course of the Indian Mutiny (1857-1859).