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Palace Green Library
Palace Green
DURHAM
DH1 3RN
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 2972
Email: pg.library@durham.ac.uk
Government and International Affairs
The Archives and Special Collections provide a rich resource for researching politics, political theory, political economy and international relations in the international context of the United Kingdom and the wider world. Offering material from the 8th to the 20th centuries, from Runnymede to the Act of Union, from colonial India, Africa and Canada to post-war European federalism, there is much to discover.
General
Highlights of resources for some specific areas are described below, but resources for many more specific topics can be discovered by searching for the appropriate topic (such as consumerism in early-modern probate inventories) in Discover and by restricting the search to ‘Durham Archives’ or by searching the printed catalogue by selecting the topic as a subject or keyword and restricting the search to ‘Special Collections’ or ‘Ushaw College’.
The Grey Papers
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The collections of the Earls Grey include those of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845), prime minister 1830-1834, and Charles, 1st Earl Grey (1729-1807) and General Charles Grey (1804-1870), who both served in North America, and Albert, 4th Earl Grey (1851-1917), Administrator in Rhodesia 1896, and Governor-General of Canada 1904-1911. They provide official and personal material on key debates in 19th-century British politics, including slavery, Catholic emancipation and electoral reform. |
The family was also much concerned with colonial affairs and international trade, and the papers contain a wealth of correspondence, maps and printed pamphlets covering all aspects of British international interests from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. The papers of John, Viscount Ponsonby (ca. 1770-1855), Ambassador to Turkey 1833-1841, form a significant part of this records group.
Africa and the Middle East
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Several of our collections document the history of British interventions in African and Middle Eastern nations. The largest of these collections is the Sudan Archive, which is designated of international significance. This archive and that of the last khedive of Egypt, ’Abbas Hilmi II (1874-1944), offer excellent research opportunities around the occupation and then administration of Egypt and Sudan (now Sudan and South Sudan) in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Many former Sudanese administrators also later went on to influential positions in other African and Middle Eastern states. The Wylde Family Papers contain much of African (and broader) interest principally on the suppression of the slave trade.
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The Ponsonby papers, and those of John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham (1792-1840), Sir Evelyn Baring (1903-1973), Malcolm MacDonald (1901-1981) and Sir Donald Hawley (1921-2008) contain the records of British diplomats active in Russia, South America, Europe, Turkey, Canada, India, South East Asia, Laos, China, Kenya, Sudan, Trucial States, Nigeria, Iraq and Oman: de-colonisation features strongly in the later collections. The 1979 Iranian revolution is documented in detail in the papers of journalist Vahe Petrossian (1939-2018). The Special Collections include the former Oriental Studies Library and consequently also hold a large number of rare printed items on Africa, the Middle East, India, China and South East Asia.
British Politics
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Our collections include much of local and national interest, ranging from 14th and 15th century English-Scottish relations, to the 17th century British Civil Wars, to 18th-century Durham city guilds, to 19th-century electioneering and reform, to the archive of Labour peer Jack Lawson (1881-1965). Durham Cathedral Archive contains much about medieval relations between England and Scotland with a fine series of early Scottish royal charters and much documentation from the 14th and 15th centuries. The archive also documents relations with the papacy in Rome and Avignon throughout the medieval period including many papal bulls. |
The Mickleton & Spearman Manuscripts are just one of several valuable antiquarian collections of local records of national and local governance, many ephemeral and not surviving elsewhere. These complement the quasi-state records of the Durham Palatinate collection. The Local collection provides a growing resource of valuable reference publications about County Durham and the wider region.
The Grey Papers include collections of several members of the family who took up leading roles at important moments in British political history, including parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation, and the abolition of slavery. These are complimented by the recent acquisition of the papers of John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, and which also contain material on international affairs and diplomacy, particularly relating to his terms as Ambassador to Russia 1835-1837, and Governor-General of Canada 1838-1839. The libraries of Martin Routh (1755-1854), Bishop John Cosin (1594-1672), and the Sharp family are particularly effective in documenting 17th and 18th century political events and debates, and include substantial pamphlet collections and landmark publications such a Hobbes’ Leviathan.
