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Adam Matthew Publications Pre 2003 Publications 2003/4 | Earlier publications: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | The First World War: A Documentary RecordSeries One: European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection from Cambridge University Library Part 1: The Card Catalogue Index and Manuscript Listings 7 reels of 35mm silver-halide positive microfilm plus guide Beginning our major microfilm series on the First World War we are making available to a wider audience for the first time the riches of the Cambridge War Reserve Collection. Part 1 provides the Card Catalogue and manuscript Listings which highlight the great range and scope of the material covered. We are very pleased that Dr J M Winter, University Lecturer in History and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge has agreed to act as our Consultant Editor for this project. The Great War, with its tale of splendour and misery, stirred Francis Jenkinson profoundly. As Cambridge University Librarian, Jenkinson decided at the beginning of 1915 to embark upon a comprehensive and systematic collection of all materials pertaining to the European conflict. He set to work at once, writing in all directions, literally from China to Peru, to public offices at home and abroad, to men on every front, to English exiles and to sympathetic neutrals. The result was the Cambridge War Reserve Collection which documents the military campaigns, the social and political scene, the role of women, the impact of science and technology, reconstruction, Versailles and the League of Nations, and the unsatisfactory and inconclusive nature of the peace. Much poignant and detailed information is revealed through letters and poems, press cuttings from foreign newspapers, propaganda, eye witness accounts, personal reminiscences and diaries, pamphlets and leaflets, posters, postcards and photographs. A flavour of some of the material is given by Jenkinson's own letters: "Dear Sir In May 1915 he wrote: "An attempt is being made to form an historical collection of pamphlets, newspapers, proclamations, fly sheets, etc..., illustrative of the War" In 1916 he wrote "A special effort has been made to collect, while it is still possible, such ephemeral literature arising out of the War as might hereafter be interesting and useful to students. German propaganda literature has been accumulated chiefly from Italy, Spain, the United States, and some of the South American Republics. Much of this is printed in Germany; but some is produced by partizans at Genoa, Barcelona, Castellon, New York, Chicago, Shanghai, Bogatá, Medellin, Barranquilla, San José, Santiago, Curaçoa... All serial publications, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, leaflets..., connected with the war have been welcomed, and much help has been given by kind friends, both here and abroad." C E Sayle's editorial piece on the War Collection in ULC (a short periodical record of library achievements published between 1920 and 1923) highlights: "Among the novelties which form part of the Collection may be mentioned 2 balloons received from Viscount Esher, used for the distribution of propaganda leaflets over the enemy lines; a large number of War Posters from T Knox-Shaw MA, Lt J G A North and others, some of which were obtained from hoardings in the occupied territory; postcards and letters from prisoners of war; regimental Christmas Cards; a specimen of a cheap novel in Low German, in which is inserted a sheet of printed matter containing news of officers and men in prisoner's camps in this and other countries; Bolshevik paper money; local credit notes issued in France and Belgium and many other items". According to C E Sayle the Collection contains over 10,000 items. He adds that "These contributions are due entirely to the enthusiasm and energy of the Librarian, who has in most cases made a personal appeal to the donors. We are greatly indebted to all those who have interested themselves in our work, and helped to preserve the memorials of the Great War". "...there can be no doubt that he rendered a great public service... and that some day the historian... will turn with avidity to the ill-printed scraps, often stained with the Flanders mud, to the pages of The Grim Old Lion's Dare Devil Gazette or The Two-Asuere, and bless the man who managed to save them from the dust heap". Above all C E Sayle says that Jenkinson's decision to embark on such a collection was an act of great "mental alertness, vision and initiatory genius". The microfilm project tries to capture all aspects of the great conflict. In particular, to highlight the role of industry, the part played by women, the views and experiences of the soldiers themselves, the significance of propaganda, the different phases of the war, the unsatisfactory nature of the Peace Settlement and the need for Post-War Reconstruction, the project brings together a fascinating diversity of source material. The material will be reproduced in stages: Part 1 makes available the full card catalogue
Index and Manuscript Listings. These are essential to all researchers
using the Collection. The microfilm edition is a major contribution to a fuller understanding of the conflict and it will pave the way much new research and reappraisal. Sterling Price: £550 - US Dollar Price: $875 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record 'The First World War: A Documentary Record' is a major microfilm series which is making available for the first time the riches of the Cambridge War Reserve Collection. This collection is acknowledged to be one of the finest sources of documentation concerning the First World War in the world, with much unique, rare and ephemeral material. Dr J M Winter, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, is the Consultant Editor for the microfilm edition. The emphasis is on the inclusion of materials unlikely to be held in most libraries. Part 1 made available the complete card catalogue and manuscript listings of the War Reserve Collection which highlight the great range of the material held at Cambridge, and provides an invaluable bibliographical source for all aspects of the war. Part 2 commences coverage of the Collection itself and focuses on Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences. These sources provide an immediate and personal perspective on the war. They bring home the realities of trench warfare, and describe the experiences of infantrymen, officers, airmen, the medical corps, those at training camps, the tank corps, sappers, captured troops, soldiers on their way home and soldiers new to the front. There is much gallows humour and many eye-witness reports of major events. The material comes from the complete spectrum of participants. British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian troops are most heavily represented - as one would expect - but there are also significant German, French, American, Spanish, Swedish and Polish sources and additional materials from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland. 118 Trench Journals are included. These were often cyclostyle publications created at the front. Some bear evidence of having been read in the trenches before being mailed to Cambridge to form a part of this Collection. The titles of the journals conjure up images by themselves. Examples are: The Gasper; The Iodine Chronicle (journal of No 1 Canadian Field Ambulance); Chronicles of the NZEF; La Baïonette; Le Claque á Fond; Pulham Patrol; Anzac Bulletin; Breath o' the Heather; The Mudhook, incorporating the Dardenelles Dug-out Gossip; The Dead House Corner Gazette (Canadian BEF); Aussie; The Eaglet (US Forces Magazine); The Codford Wheeze; The Fag-End (NZEF); Poison Gas; The Wormlet; and The Whizz-bang. Many of these titles include poetry written at the front, observations on the merits of officers, cartoons, and special features, as well as some operational details and reviews of past events. Some - such as The Anzac Book: written and illustrated in Gallipoli are lavishly illustrated with drawings and photographs. Internment camps produced their own magazines including Deutsche Internierten-Zeitung; Journal des Internés Français; and Lager-Echo. Journals dealing with specialist forces include The Tenedos Times: journal of the Mediterranean destroyer flotilla; Doings in German East Africa; Canadian Sapper; Barrak: The Camel Corps Review; The Whippet (a tank corps journal); and The WRAF on the Rhine. 68 Personal Narratives and Reminiscences are included. We have concentrated on titles published before 1925, and on titles that were privately printed and thus received only limited circulation. All manner of experiences are recorded in these as some sample titles will suggest: Australia in Palestine, 1919; N-Fraser-Tytler, With Lancashire Lads and Field Guns, 1922; J Krafft, Das Kriegstagbuch; J'accuse! Feuillets du Journal d'un soldat - homme de lettres, 1915; W Bellows, A Carnet de route, 1917; F M Gum, With Riflemen, Scouts and Snipers, 1921; Sven Hedin, Bagdad, Babylon, Ninive, 1917; Mme E Colombel, Journal d'une Infirmiére d'Arras, 1916; A E Casales, A young soldier in France, 1916; E Moraht, Unser gemeinsamer krieg, 1915; and Danske soldaterbreve, 1918. The collection is rounded off with two gatherings of manuscript letters from the front and miscellaneous items such as dictionaries of trench slang. Our coverage by no means exhausts the resources of the War Reserve Collection in this area and a future part will make available a further selection with a particular emphasis on journals incorporating sketches and photographs. Scholars working on personal reminiscences should scan the relevant sections of the card catalogue and manuscript listings for further details. What is provided is a rich and probably unparalleled collection of these sources, which will provoke much new research and teaching. Sterling Price: £1550 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record 'The First World War: A Documentary Record' is a major microfilm series which is making available for the first time the riches of the Cambridge War Reserve Collection. This collection is acknowledged to be one of the finest sources of documentation concerning the First World War in the world, with much unique, rare and ephemeral material. Dr J M Winter, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, is the Consultant Editor for the microfilm edition. The emphasis is on the inclusion of materials unlikely to be held in most libraries. Part 1 made available the complete card catalogue and manuscript listings of the War Reserve Collection which highlight the great range of the material held at Cambridge, and provides an invaluable bibliographical source for all aspects of the war. Part 2 commenced coverage of the Collection itself and focused on Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences. Parts 3 and 4 concentrate on one of the great strengths of the War Reserve Collection - its holdings of Allied and German propaganda. Part 3 offers Allied Propaganda; Part 4 offers German Propaganda. The Propaganda War was a war within a war and - more than any other aspect of the conflict - it reveals the international dimensions of the War. Whilst the war on the ground took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, the war of words was truly intercontinental - affecting North and South America, the Far East, North Africa, the Middle East, Australasia and Scandinavia. For, in addition to attempts to raise the morale of friendly troops, and to depress the morale of the enemy, propaganda campaigns were also fought to encourage neutrals to enter the war, or to persuade them to stay neutral; to encourage international condemnation for the acts of one's opponent, and to generate approval for one's own acts; and to destabilise sources of support for the enemy, whilst solidifying one's own. The range of places of publication for the items included makes this internationalism abundantly clear. In Part 3 (Allied Propaganda), the chief places of publication are London, Paris, Rome, New York, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Washington DC, Copenhagen and Chicago. But there are also imprints for Petrograd, Cairo, Valencia, Napoli, Bombay, Torino, Ohio, Milan, Peru, Oxford, Zurich, Berne, Rio de Janeiro, Bordeaux, Sydney, York, Birmingham, Geneva, Edinburgh, Uppsala, Limoges, Tokyo, Pennsylvania, Lausanne, Manchester, Algiers, S Paulo, Rabat, Mexico, Wisconsin, Melbourne, Londonderry, Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Constantinople, Cambridge, Caracas, Providence and Quito. In Part 4 (German Propaganda) the chief places of publication are Berlin, New York, Barcelona, Munich, Stockholm, Leipzig, Rio de Janiero, Chicago and San Francisco. But there are also imprints for Frankfurt a.m., Utrecht, Bremen, Hamburg, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Bielefeld, Lisbon, Nancy, Calcutta, Lausanne, Zurich, Brooklyn, Madrid, Bruch, Bogota, Köln, Berne, S Paulo, Helsingborg, Geneva, Stuttgart, Bonn, Portland, Oldenburg, Los Angeles, Dortmund, Basel, Singapore, Graz, Istanbul, Bayreuth, Bismark - North Dakota, Zaragoza, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Augsburg, Kristanta, Glasgow and Boston. Germany spent over 100 million dollars on direct propaganda in newspapers and other publications. The British centre for propaganda at Wellington House, London was headed by Sir Gilbert Parker. Much of the effort was aimed at the United States before 1917. The great battles of Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele gave rise to tremendous outpourings on each side trying to justify the stalemate, slaughter and renewed offensives. In this project all types of material are portrayed: appeals to keep up morale; the undermining of enemy civilian and front-line morale and finally the wooing of neutrals. The propaganda produced comes in a variety of forms all of which are well presented in this collection. Part 3 commences with the series of Leaflets, dropped by Allied aeroplanes and balloons. War maps - intended to mislead and discourage - are one of the central features of these leaflets, which also feature grotesque caricatures, encouraging words about good treatment in P o W camps for defectors, and digs at authority. Posters are among the most striking propaganda efforts, and were designed to have an immediate, visceral effect on the reader. WRB 19.46 (Part 3, Reel 1) contains a selection of the most effective posters of the First World War (Allied and Axis). Cartoons were also intended to have an immediate visual impact and the work of the Dutch-born cartoonist, Louis Raemaekers, became familiar to soldiers and politicians alike. We include a comprehensive edition of his cartoons with supporting descriptions by Hilaire Belloc, John Buchan et al (WRB 19.30, Part 3, Reel 1) as well as a popular cigarette card set (Cards 1-140) from Black Cat cigarettes (WRE 19.303, Part 3, Reel 20). Cartoons were also a prominent feature of Humorous Journals - of which two examples are included in this microfilm edition. The Cartoon (WRB 106; Part 3, Reel 4) is an allied Humour Journal including large fold-out cartoons as well as humorous articles. Much of the propaganda in journals of this type is subliminal - the reader is carried along with the general whimsy, which is embedded with the values of those producing it, encouraging the development of stereotypical attitudes to "the Hun" or "the Britisher". Bull (WRB 303. 1-2, Part 4, Reel 2) is the German counter-point, mimicking the style of Punch. Newspapers aimed at sympathetic (often expatriate) residents abroad are also represented. The Bulletin des Français Résident á L'Etranger (WRB 420, Part 3, Reel 4), Nouvelles de France (WRB 421, Part 3, Reel 4), Reality: The World's Searchlight on Germany (WRB 429, Part 3, Reel 5), and Heraldo Americano (WRB 429, Part 3, Reel 5) are Allied examples of the genre. Deutsch-Amerika (WRA 507, Part 4, Reel 1) and The Fatherland (WRB 305.1-8, Part 4, Reels 3-5) are German examples - aimed particularly at Germans and German sympathisers in America. These titles play on the innate sympathies of the reader - selecting and shaping the news to confirm existing prejudices. However, by far the most common form of propaganda adopted throughout the war was the pamphlet - offering a concise argument intended to persuade, cajole, mislead, or otherwise transform the beliefs of the reader. Parts 3 and 4 include hundreds of such pamphlets produced by both sides, enabling the intellectual issues of the war to be thoroughly examine, as well as the specific propaganda campaigns, such as that to try to encourage or discourage America to enter the war. The ad authoritem use of leading
politicians and writers as authors of the pamphlets was a common
practice. Amongst the authors of Allied Propaganda in Part 3 are
to be found the names of: Amongst the authors of German Propaganda
in Part 4 are: Sterling Price: £1550 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record This fourth part continues coverage of the propaganda materials held in the war reserve Collection at Cambridge University Library. Sterling Price: £1550 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record The First World War: A Documentary Record is a major microfilm series which is making available the riches of the War Reserve Collection at Cambridge University Library. This collection is widely recognised to be one of the finest sources of documentation concerning the First World War in the world. Francis Jenkinson, University Librarian, started to build the collection in 1915 by writing to men on every front, to those organising the auxiliary forces and supervising the production of munitions, to embassies at home and abroad, and to English exiles and to sympathetic neutrals. As a result he gathered a wealth of rare and ephemeral publications (including unique copies of trench journals, souvenir issues produced by ambulance units, recruiting fliers, and photographs of women's work during the war) which capture the immediacy of the war. The collection has been added to ever since and continues to grow today. With the guidance of Jay Winter of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Consultant Editor) we are making available many of the rarest and most interesting materials from the collection on a thematic basis. Part 1 covered the complete card catalogue and listing of the collection. Part 2 offered a wide range of Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences from soldiers from many countries. Parts 3 & 4 provided a broad range of propaganda produced by Allied and Axis powers. This fifth part deals with the activities of the auxiliary services during the war. These range from field ambulances and military hospitals, through concert parties and famine relief organisations, to the work of munitions factories and railway interests in the war. There is even a work documenting the role of pigeons in the war. Some of the particular groups dealt with are: The Red Cross (American, British & Canadian Divisions); The Royal Army Medical Corps; the American Poets Ambulances in Italy; the Friends Ambulance Unit; Princess Louise Scottish Hospital, Glasgow; The Anglo-French-American Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine; the New Zealand Medical Service; The Indian Military Hospital at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton; the French Relief Fund; the Commission for the Relief of Belgium; the National Food Fund; and the YMCA. These sources will deepen our understanding of the substantial and very valuable work performed by these services during the war and will open up many new avenues for research. Part 5 contains more than 600 individual booklets, souvenirs, magazines, manuscript letters and other items. It includes: Records of Railway Interests in the War.
(including Ambulance trains, GW Railway Hospital, ships etc)
Tatham, M. The Friends Ambulance Unit,
1914-19 Leng, W St. Q. SSA 10. Notes on the work
of a British Volunteer Notes of the employment of women on
munitions of war Hayes, Middlesex. A short history of
National Filling Factory No 7 American Poets Ambulances in Italy Tales of a field ambulance (privately
printed) Carbery, A D - New Zealand Medical Service
Edington, G H With the 1st
Lowland FA in Gallipoli Kraus A. L'ospedale de Guerra della republica
di San Marino Wounded by Arnold Bennett The War Work of the Auxiliary Hospitals
The Birth: Early days of our ambulance
trains in France The American Women's War relief fund.
Report of work Lord, J R. The Story of the Italian War
Hospital "The First World War was the world-changing
event of this century. With all that has been written about it,
large areas need to be enriched and deepened by access to a wider
range of material. The War Reserve Collection at Cambridge University
Library contains many unfamiliar and unusual documents. Once it
becomes widely available, it will provide one basis for scholarly
and popular studies of topics such as the trench experience, the
role of the auxiliary services, and the propaganda campagns of the
two sides...." Sterling Price: £1950 - US Dollar Price: $3100 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The First World
War: A Documentary Record Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for China, 1949-1976 This microfilm project addresses a crucial period in Chinese history, from the foundation of the People's Republic, in 1949, to the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao, the arrest of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. This project is drawn entirely from FO 371
and FCO files on China for the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Key topics
addressed include: The material within these files not only reveals Britain's attitude toward China, but also the wider repercussions of her interest there. Of particular interest is the United States' reaction to Britain's relationship with China and her new Communist rulers. The following extract shows how the UK's policies toward the new regime in Peking could have unforeseen consequences, as well as giving a good sense of the tensions that underpinned the 'special relationship': "Dear Department, In another letter, to Schuman the French Foreign Minister, Britain's sensitivity to international reactions to her policies, and the entangled nature of the Far Eastern situation are revealed: "We cannot indefinitely go on ignoring the effective government of a vast territory like China. I shall be happy if the French government take a similar decision, but if you cannot I shall understand the special difficulties of your position arising out of the Indo-China situation.... I earnestly trust that our recognition of China will not add to your difficulties in Indo-China - my considered view is that worse dangers would flow from non-recognition than from recognition of China - and I hope that neither your own authorities on the spot, nor Bao Dai and his administration, will misinterpret our action...." Part 1 concentrates on the complete files for 1949. President Chiang's New Year Message for
1949 (see FO 371/75736) opens: A total of 45 files, entitled "Events leading to the formation of a communist government of the Peoples Republic of China", record the progress of the Revolution and the eventual triumph of Mao Tse Tung and the Communist Revolutionaries. A large grouping of 21 files (FO 371/75810 through to FO 371/75830) covers Recognition of the Communist Government of China, in particular: discussions between Britain and other governments on the question of recognition. Other files in Part 1 give a background report on events in China in 1948; brief biographies of leading communist personalities in China; details on relations between China and Hong Kong; relations between Hong Kong and Macao; weekly and monthly summaries of events in China in 1949; the move of the Chinese Government from Nanking; Soviet-China relations; with numerous files on the Economic situation in China and British Commercial interests in China. There are 6 files on Formosa/Taiwan. The famous incident involving HMS Amethyst in the Yangtze River, 20 April 1949, is well covered in a total of 11 files. Further files document the Chinese National Government blockade of ports under communist control and the closure of Chinese territorial waters up to 12 miles; British shipping in the region; the position of British subjects in China; evacuations from Shanghai; compensation for the bombing of British ships by Chinese Nationalist air forces; British Coal Mining interests in China; the move of Chinese National Airways Corporation to Kai Tek airport in Hong Kong; Sovereignty issues regarding Kowloon and the New Territories; as well as details of the likely impact of events on the situation in Indo-China, Burma and Malaysia. The new regime in China, called the People's Republic of China, was officially proclaimed on 1 October 1949. The Organic Law of 1949 became the basic law of the land and was not replaced until the 1954 Constitution was adopted. The wider availability of all these files, made possible by this microfilm edition, opens up many new possibilties for research on Asia Studies, particularly focused on China. "China specialists can contribute to
wider theoretical debates by suggesting new concepts and tools for
understanding the role of national identity and nationalist imperatives
in the foreign relations of post-imperial states...." Sterling Price: £2400 - US Dollar Price: $3875 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for China, 1949-1976 This microfilm project makes available for the first time the detailed reports of Britain's diplomatic service from its Asian bases in mainland China, Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan. These files are particularly valuable not only because Britain had strongly established interests in the region and an extensive network of contacts, but also because, unlike America, Britain recognised the Chinese Communist Government early on and maintained a full diplomatic presence in China. The documents reproduced here provide a mass of fascinating source material for the study of this crucial period in the history of modern China. Scholars can also analyse the divergence in the British and American views on developments in the region and the differing response to each new situation. Part 2 continues from Part 1 with its in depth coverage of events in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan by means of weekly and monthly reports. Many files monitor the progress in the take over of the whole of mainland China by the forces of Mao Tse Tung's Communist Government. Many files are again devoted to the question of recognition. There is analysis on Sino-Soviet relations, American policy towards China and Taiwan, the invasion of Tibet, the situation concerning Quemoy, the control of exports of strategic materials to China and North Korea, the defence of Hong Kong, British Commercial Policy and the Blockade of the Yangtse by the Nationalists. The following small extracts give a flavour
of the material: The following extract is from the Notes
for Sir Esler Dening on his visit to Hong Kong to meet China Merchants:
There is much analysis on the economy and business affairs of Hong Kong and on issues concerning Hong Kong and China. Economic factors and British interests in China are well covered along with files on Land Reform. Sterling Price: £3350 - US Dollar Price: $5300 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for China, 1949-1976 Part 3 continues this microfilm project covering the files for 1951. Part 4 will cover 1952-1953. Again, there is in depth coverage of events in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan by means of weekly and monthly reports. Many files monitor the progress of Mao Tse Tung's Communist Government. Many further files are again devoted to the question of recognition. There is much analysis on Sino-Soviet relations and the Treaty of friendship and alliance signed in 1950 by these two countries, on American policy towards China and Taiwan, on Nationalists in Taiwan, on the control of exports of strategic materials to China and North Korea, the defence of Hong Kong, the economic situation in China, on British commercial policy and trade in Asia. The following small extracts give a flavour of the material relating to Taiwan: On the subject of Taiwan (Formosa), from
E T Biggs, Consul, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
28 December 1950 A summary of events in Formosa during February 1951 reports on increased support in America for the Nationalists: "Perhaps the most solid source of satisfaction to the Nationalists during the month has been the knowledge that they are rapidly acquiring more friends in the United States. Mr Walter and Judd and Senator Knowland have continued their active campaigning on behalf of the Nationalist cause but fresh influential support has been forthcoming. On 9th February Mr Hoover urged that Chiang Kai-Shek be freed "to do what he wishes in China" and that the United States "furnish him with munitions". On 11th February House Representative Leader Mr Joseph Martin urged that Chiang Kai-Shek be allowed to open a second front of the Korean War. Later in the month Mr Dewey, in an exchange of questions and answers with Senator Knowland, agreed that it would be "worse than appeasement" to abandon Formosa to Communist China. All these pro-Nationalist statements have been given wide publicity. Chen Yien-feng, advisor to the Nationalist delegation to the United Nations, on his arrival in Formosa on 20th February said that public opinion in America was steadily moving in favour of the Nationalists.... " Sterling Price: £2050 - US Dollar Price: $3250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and The Far East Through the complete files of the British Embassy and Consular Archives in Japan this project documents the immense political, social and economic changes in Japan since the beginning of this century. Part 1: Imperial Expansion and the Rise of Capitalism concentrates on the years 1905-1920, and in particular on correspondence to and from Japan. Immediately after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) Japan acquired significant and increased recognition around the world. Theodore Roosevelt conducted the Peace Treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA. The Great Powers opened embassies in Tokyo and Japanese legations in London, Washington, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome and St Petersburg were raised to the status of embassies. Sir Claude M MacDonald was appointed as the first British Ambassador in Tokyo in November 1905. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 was renewed and revised. The last decade of the Meiji era witnessed the growth of a new confidence, and intensification in national pride, experimentation in the realms of literature and art, imperial expansion in the form of the annexation of Korea and extended spheres of influence in Manchuria. The diplomatic offensive against China and the "Twenty One Demands" of 1915 brought further territorial, commercial and economic advantages, but awakened British and particularly American eyes to the consequences of Japanese opportunism. Japan sent a strong delegation of sixty members to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of the First World War. Japan was given a permanent seat on the newly created Council of the League of Nations. This amounted to full recognition of Japan's status as a world power. From 1918 Japanese troops were involved in the Allied interventions in Siberia. Japan took part in the important Washington Conference, 1921-22. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was replaced by a 'Four Power Treaty' with Britain, France and the United States. This rise to world power status was already well recognised by 1920 with the 'Four Power' discussions on Loans to China, continued involvement in Siberia, discussions on the future of India and a regular exchange of ideas on all the major issues of the time. This exchange of ideas is well documented in the Foreign Office Files covered by this microfilm edition. Throughout the entire period these files are packed with information on all subjects. The data and assessments give us a fascinating insight into the views, policies, decisions and actions of the Japanese, British, Americans, Soviets, Chinese and other nations involved all over the Far East. Subjects featured include the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Railways in Manchuria, Customs Duties and Tariffs, Commercial Legislation, Trade Marks and Patents, International Trade and Shipping, Treaty Negotiations, Immigration, Taxation, Prize Courts, the Boycott of Japanese Goods in China, Fishery Limits, Industrial and Economic Expansion, Loans to China, Animal Diseases, Perpetual Leases, the Japanese Red Cross Society, Japanese Prisons, Trade Restrictions during the First World War and Prohibitions on Trading with the Enemy. A fuller flavour of the subject contents of these files is given in the detailed listing in the paperback guide. The material is arranged chronologically, but Correspondence to the Japanese is contained under separate piece numbers to Correspondence from the Japanese. The following is an example of a typical entry. It is an extract from the Minutes of a Meeting of the Most Influential Men held at the House of Marquis Katsura on 14 March 1909: "Marquis Inouye declared the meeting
open and explained the reasons for it being called which may be
summarised as follows: Another example concerns the careful watch
on suspect persons and suspicious firms after Japanese entry into
the First World War. It refers to the frequent visits of G Kiehl
to No: 19 Gochome Hirakawa Cho where he is met by other Germans: A final example is the following Confidential
Note from the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, January 29,
1919: Sterling Price: £1400 - US Dollar Price: $2250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Through the complete files of the British Embassy and Consular Archives in Japan this project documents the immense political, social and economic changes in Japan since the beginning of this century. Part 2: The Early 'Twenties - Growth of a New World Power covers the years 1921 to 1923 inclusive and features important files on the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Arms Traffic, China, Drugs, the internal political situation in Japan, the Pan Asiatic League, the Safeguarding of Industries, Siberia, Socialism, Trade Marks and the Washington Conference of 1921-1922 on Naval Disarmament and questions in the Far East. There is also material on the Dutch East Indies, the Great Earthquake of 1923 and the requirements for Earthquake Relief. The files in this second part are arranged in a different manner to Part 1. The chronological arrangement is replaced by a system of subject files arranged in alphabetical sequence for each year. The detailed listing in the paperback guide gives a comprehensive list of all these subject files. The following are one or two examples of the kind of material contained in these files. A 14 page report of January 1921 highlights the special advantages enjoyed by Japan in Manchuria and assesses the principle of equal opportunity for all nationalities in the region. The Report states that: "The practical monopoly which Japan possesses of the foreign import trade of Manchuria can obviously be only due to certain special local advantages enjoyed by Japanese goods in competition with those of other countries which do not obtain for them elsewhere in China where Japanese trade makes proportionately a far poorer showing than in Manchuria. These special advantages, in the order in which they will be dealt with in this report, are proximity to the market, presence in Manchuria of a large Japanese population, demand for Manchurian produce in Japan, reduced Customs duties on railway borne traffic from Japan, political influence, and control of railway and postal facilities in South Manchuria..." The report then goes on to look at each aspect in depth. Another file on the Philippines includes
the Report of the Special Mission to the Philippines in 1921 chaired
by Major-General Leonard Wood. During the Wood-Forbes Commission's
9 day visit to Japan in October, General Wood's comments are recorded
as follows: Later in the week, speaking at a dinner
of Members of the America-Japan Society at the Banker's Club, General
Wood said, in replying to the speech of welcome by Viscount Kaneko,
the President of the Society: The files on Siberia contain a similar amount of detail. The section for January to July 1921 includes a 47 page "Narrative of Events in Siberia, 1918-1920" followed by much analysis and comment. A major feature of the period was the Washington
Conference on Naval Disarmament. He continued: A Statement by Mr T Yamamoto, Member of
the Diet and a Manager of the Seiyukurai (Ministerialist) Party,
attending the Washington Conference as a representative of his Party,
dated 24 November 1921, reads as follows: He emphasizes "Japan's special duty at this juncture is to get Foreign Powers fully to grasp the fact that she has no aggressive intentions. It is with this object in view that I and my companions are going to the US in addition to the official delegates..." Finally he comments: "Turning from this to economic questions, the changes which have taken place in the economic conditions prevailing in America during the war and after show a remarkable similarity with the changes which have taken place during the same period in Japan. The similarity is even noticeable in the recent rise of the price of commodities which in both countries had for a time fallen heavily. It is my intention during my stay in the US to investigate this point." The month of September 1923 and the ensuing period was dominated by the Great Earthquake that devastated much of Yokohama, Tokyo and surrounding districts. A Document entitled "Earthquake Relief Work and Foreign Assistance" reports in March 1924: "The disaster was unparalleled in the history of this country in the extent of the damage done. Not only were there caused very serious private losses, but the country generally was adversely affected industrially, economically and otherwise. Fortunately, however, conditions are being steadily restored to their former state, and a spirit of revival and reconstruction is in evidence in the districts laid waste by the calamity. This is in no small measure due to the powerful moral support and generous material assistance given us by foreign countries..." The Official Report of Captain Robinson of the "Empress of Australia" gives dramatic details of events of the first day of September at Yokohama: "It was then realised that the whole of the town, including the Foreign Settlement and the Residential District on the Bluff had been destroyed. Fires could be seen burning fiercely all along the foreshore and in all directions for miles inland. Later, glares in the sky in the direction of Tokyo and Yokosuka showed that they were burning too. We put out lifeboats with all the men available and sent them to the shore of the Bund to pick up survivors, all the Europeans among the ship's company who could be spared, and several passengers who volunteered, forming search and stretcher parties for the injured. This work was continued all through the night and was at times a task of considerable danger." There are very full and detailed reports on proceedings in the Diet throughout the period. Weekly analyses of the political situation in Japan, details on the personalities involved, and the achievements of the various sessions provide an excellent picture of Japanese politics. The following small extract is from a letter
from Sir Charles Eliott to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, "The chief feature of the proceedings in the Diet during the last week has been the debate in the Lower House on universal suffrage. A big demonstration in Tokyo and a strong newspaper campaign in the larger towns in its favour preceded the debate but there is nothing to show that popular sentiment is stronger than last year. After very disorderly scenes in the House the proposal was rejected yesterday by a large majority." All these extracts give a flavour of the contents of the subject dossiers. There is a wealth of intelligence gathered by a highly trained diplomatic corps. These files provide an interesting foil to the US State Department Central Files for the period. Sterling Price: £3400 - US Dollar Price: $5500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Continuing our major series on Embassy and Consular Archives for Japan and the Far East, Part 3 makes available the subject files, for the years 1924 to 1926, from Foreign Office Class FO 262 with a strong emphasis on Economic and Electoral Reform, the Chinese Boycott and the End of the Taisho Period. The Annual Reports for each preceding year are included and these comprise a central and detailed analytical document covering all the major issues of the previous twelve months. The Annual Report for 1923 (released 1924) features an Introductory Survey, notes on Internal Affairs (Governmental and Parliamentary; Court; Social Conditions; the Earthquake) and Relations between Japan and Great Britain, China, Russia and the United States. There are also good notes on Finance and Economics, Trade and Commerce, Reconstruction, the Army and the Navy. Particularly valuable are the reports of the then Japanese dependencies of Korea and Formosa. The Report comments with some concern upon
Relations between Japan and Great Britain: On Korea, a large sub-section of the Report
gives details on the Independence Movement, Frontier Raids, Education,
Mission Schools, Police Methods, Relations with Japanese, Relations
with Foreigners, Russian Refugees, Railway Development and Mining.
The Report notes that: There are also substantial individual subject files on Korea and Formosa. The 1925 file on Korea is especially useful for information on private hospitals, private schools, reports on the economic and political situation by Arthur Hyde Lay, and accounts of the severe floods to the south and east of the city of Seoul. There is a 33 page Annual Report on affairs in Korea - for the index to this report see folios 390 and 408-9 of FO 262/1638. Significant issues covered include the Korean Government's resumption of active control of the Korean State Railways, previously operated by the South Manchurian Railway Company; trade with Japan; Banking; the dismissal of officials to simplify the large administrative bureaucracy; political agitation; labour relations and education. The general state of feeling in Korea is summed up as "...quiet resignation on the surface, ...unrest among the younger generation... divided into two schools, one anti-foreign and independent, the other frankly Bolshevik, both being strongly though secretly anti-Japanese." On the subject of Formosa, Sir C Eliot to Austen Chamberlain, a despatch dated Tokyo, March 12, 1925 contains some interesting comments: "The administration of the island is, upon the whole, exceedingly efficient, but it affords little or no scope for the activities of the educated Formosan-Chinese, who feel that they have a right to some share in the management of their country. The existing political unrest is of little consequence, but the Japanese dream of assimilation is probably unrealisable, and the day must come sooner or later when the situation in Formosa will resemble that in the Philippines today, and when the Japanese will be confronted by the ingratitude, as they will consider it, of those upon whom they have conferred the benefits of an administration much better than anything which existed in the time of Chinese sovereignty." See FO 262/1636, folio 157. The subject files on the Japanese Political Situation are very thorough. The file for 1925 includes minuted details, by the Ambassador and other Embassy Staff, concerning the new members of the Kato Cabinet, news cuttings and biographical information about key individuals. Analytical accounts of the changes in the leadership of the Seiyukai, a diary of events, press comments and further background information build up an impressively documented picture of the political scene. In June 1924, a coalition party cabinet was formed under Kato Takaaki, following only the second General Election since the First World War. The leading political parties, headed by the Seiyukai and Kenseikai, decisively defeated the nominees of the Government. Kato's Kenseikai won the most seats. Under Kato, and his successor Wakatsuki, Japanese politics seemed to be moving more firmly into an era of liberal reforms. This trend was supported by Saionji, the last of the surviving Genro. The power of the Army appeared to be diminishing. Other signs, however pointed in the other direction. Scholars can study the observations made at the time and re-examine the shifting power balances. Electoral Reform gave all male subjects, above the age of 25, the right to vote. The new Bill added about 6.25 million voters to the Electorate and is described by the British Ambassador, in his introduction to the 1925 Annual Report, as "one of the most important pieces of legislation which modern Japan has seen and may prove a turning point in the development of the nation." Perhaps this goes a little too far? The Bill for the Preservation of Peace aroused equal interest. The debates were subject to violence inside and outside of the House, which was cordoned off by the police. The Bill passed with help from some members of the Opposition, despite the disapproval of many members of the Coalition. The new measure was not much welcomed by public opinion. It gave the police even greater powers to deal with all those who cherished "dangerous thoughts" or "desired changes in the Constitution or the abolition of private property". This new legislation was used to deal with radical elements within the labour movement and to deter other opponents of the Government. There are significant files on the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and a wealth of detail on the visit of HRH Prince George (for the latter see under "Visits of the Fleet" FO 262/1646). The Prince's visit was a great success. An officer on board the cruiser HMS Hawkins, he was a guest of the Imperial Family at two functions and enjoyed social gatherings organised by the British Association, the British Society and the British Embassy. There is also very good material on Arms Traffic. A file note referring to a consignment of arms and ammunition which actually arrived at Dairen on 17 November 1924 in the German Steamship "Sophie Rickmers" states that "it seems probable that this material may be intended for the belligerent forces in China and, should this be the case, a breach of the China Arms agreement will be involved." At this time Australia was developing many interests in common with Japan. Dr Page, Acting Prime Minister of Australia observed "We have mutual responsibilities in the Pacific. Around the shores of that huge ocean are gathered a great bulk of the people of the earth. Each day they become stronger, more numerous, and wealthier. It needs little vision to see that the centre of the world's political and commercial gravity is shifting towards the Pacific." The 1923 Annual Report emphasises the conciliatory policies, including the abolition of postal agencies, employed by Japan in its relations with China. the anti-Japanese boycott, which started in May 1923, had a considerable impact upon trade. The Japanese Government was careful not to further inflame the situation and the Great Earthquake disaster brought further support from the international community. For a time, in China, it was no longer the Japanese, but the British who bore the brunt of nationalist ill-will. A dangerous situation was brewing in China, with much internal confusion, and in 1927 the forces of Chiang Kai-shek (now also referred to as Jiang Jieshi) would sweep northwards to gain control of the Yangtze valley. One of his aims was the abolition of extra-territoriality and the eventual recovery of full Chinese sovereignty over such alien enclaves as the Chinese Eastern Railway (under Russian control) and the Japanese zone and leased territory in Southern Manchuria. There are detailed files on the developing situation in China - see FO 262/1629, FO 262/1652 and FO 262/1653 - whilst the China Tariff Conference is covered in FO 262/1654 and FO 262/1655. The Report from the Military Attaché in Peking, 14 November 1924, to Sir Ronald Macleay, Her British Majesty's Minister, Peking warns that "Few residents in China will believe in Japanese neutrality and the Chinese themselves are unanimous in the opinion that Japan has dispersed the Chihli Party so as to reinstate their Anfu friends." A confidential note of 23 December 1925 says "that it was a great mistake to suppose that in Manchuria the Japanese were supporting Chang who is Feng's enemy against Kuo who is supposed to be Feng's friend...there is no proof whatever that they are friends." A note of 28 December 1925 concludes: "Chang's victory is complete and his position in Manchuria is secure, except for the fact that his territory and Feng's are now conterminous, since the latter is in possession of Tientsin and all Chih-li." There is wonderful source material in the lead up to the Shanghai Incident and the China Crisis. Events are analysed from the Japanese, Russian, Chinese and British standpoints. Scholars can study at first hand the conflicts which later culminated in the severe fighting of 1937. The files are full of the latest information reports and evaluations: a good example is the following: "Danger of outbreak of hostilities is confirmed by HM Consul, General Mukden and by Sutton, military adviser to Chang Tso-lin who came to see me March 28th... said that Chang, though wavering from day to day, might move at any moment and was anxious to know whether HMG would be annoyed if he opened hostilities..." relayed by Tokyo to Foreign Office, 30 March 1925. Key files on the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway complete the picture. FO 262/1664 contains a 32 page report on the "Political and Commercial History of the Kwantung Leased Territory and the South Manchuria Railway Zone in 1925" - see folio 312 et seq. See FO 262/1642 for details of the Railways
in Manchuria, especially folios 58-63 which is a 6 page letter,
by Oswald White, from the British Conslate in Dairen, dated December
1, 1925 and addressed to Sir Charles Eliot, British Ambassador in
Tokyo: Oswald White concludes: "The situation is complicated by the fact that China, as represented by the Mukden Government, also nurses the natural ambition of resuming sovereignty. As it is in a sense Japan which is invading Russia's sphere of influence, the South Manchuria Railway is usually to be found exercising the role of the friend behind the scenes encouraging the Mukden Government to pull the chestnuts out of the fire and the Chinese Eastern Railway fulfilling the ungrateful task of blocking progress." There are very full, detailed files on the
Economic Situation in Japan. An anecdotal record for 1924 gives
a flavour of some of this material: For 1925 and 1926 the economic situation reports focus on improvements in efficiency, Japan's requirements for further foreign loans, the extra burden of reconstruction after the Great Earthquake, and the debate on Japan's population and the food supply. On this latter subject there is a detailed memorandum by W J Davies, dated November 1926. Extensive coverage of this topic can also be found in the newspaper cuttings. The reports incorporate a synthesis of interviews with leading Japanese businessmen and Government officials. by 1926 there is growing optimism, from the British Ambassador and from the Commercial Secretary at the Tokyo Embassy, about the Japanese economy. The 1926 file contains their comments on the "unjustified pessimism" of some recent newspaper articles. The following extract from an interview
with Mr Kadono is typical of the data collected: To supplement the findings of numerous interviews, there is also much statistical data and analysis. Much Reconstruction work was required after the Great Earthquake. Various files include plans for rebuilding Consular buildings in Yokohama. Reconstruction requirements also feature in discussions on Consular Staff, Trade and Commerce, as well as the Construction Industry. A few further highlights are worth mentioning here. The thoughts and endeavours of leading members of the British Fabian Society have always been held in great interest in Japan. The 1924 file for the Fabian Society records its first meeting in Japan at the Shiba Park on 27 September at 6pm with an attendance of 1,000 people. The Proceedings of the London Reparations Conference, July-August 1924 are also reported in full. With regard to the League of Nations, Japan's opposition to any increase in the number of permanent members of the Council is made clear. Poland, Spain, Brazil and China receive no support from Japan in their claims for greater representation. There is an abundance of material on the United States and Japan which usefully complements the offerings of US State Department files for this period. The only issue that caused real concern in Japan was the decision by Congress in 1924 to prohibit oriental (including Japanese) immigration into the United States. The British Ambassador comments that "the Japanese have kept their temper admirably" and suggests that Bancrofts's advice has been heeded: "...if they wished to have the 1925 Immigration Act repealed, their only chance of success was to keep quiet in the hope that the matter might cease to be a question of party politics at Washington and be considered impartially." There is also much interesting material
on the Strike of the Japanese Cotton Mills, in particular see The Annual Report for 1925 which is to be
found in FO 262/1649, folios 149-179, contains the conclusions of
Such considerations give added weight and importance to the Embassy and Consular files reproduced in this microfilm project. The files covered here reflect the intercourse between the two powers, on a day by day basis, discussing, reporting and understanding the vast array of issues fundamental to the course of events throughout the Far East. These British archives fully document Japan's changing relations with Britain and the Commonwealth, and as Dr Gordon Daniels, President of the European Association of Japanese Resource Specialists, suggests "they provide invaluable analyses of Japan's social, economic and political development." All centres of research on Modern Japan should have this microform set. Sterling Price: £3400 - US Dollar Price: $5500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The Guardian
Index, 1929-1972 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Libraries can now acquire a complete run of the previously unpublished index to The Guardian running from 1842 to 1985 (the printed index started in 1986). The Guardian Index unlocks the riches of this leading international newspaper by providing a direct route to the millions of articles written in this period. It will be particularly helpful for scholars to have access to the countless review articles featured in the newspaper. As well as book reviews (always a strong feature of the newspaper), there are reviews of ballet, cinema, drama, music, opera, radio and television. Given the paper's radical/liberal stance the index also provides access to those issues which The Guardian covered in greater detail than any other national newspaper. These range from the early struggles for women's suffrage, through labour disputes, to the problems of the immigrant coloured population in the post-World War II period. The Guardian also benefits from always having an international outlook. The rise of fascism and the plight of the Jews in the 1930's and 1940's is covered in great detail and Alistair Cooke's regular columns on American affairs, as well as his special reports on the Korean War, repay reading. There is much on decolonisation, apartheid, and protests against the War in Vietnam. Affairs in the Soviet Union and in the Far East are also extremely well documented. This Index, compiled by The Guardian for use by its' own journalists, will enable library users to gain rapid access to the articles which are of most interest to them. The Index is made available in three sections, covering 1842-1928; 1929-1972; and 1973-1985 respectively. Each of these sections is divided into parts to enable libraries with partial backfiles to acquire just those years of the Index which match their holdings. THE GUARDIAN INDEX, 1929-1972 In 1929 the Index changed in format, adopting a new type-written card index system, and continued to expand in coverage. For ease of use we have adopted microfiche from this point on. Edward Taylor Scott (C P Scott's son) served as Editor from 1929 to 1932 when he was tragically killed in a boating accident. He was succeeded by W P Crozier, the distinguished journalist (Editor, 1932-1944); A P Wadsworth (Editor, 1944-1956); and A P Hetherington (1956-1975). It was Hetherington who changed the title of the newspaper to The Guardian in 1959, foreshadowing the transferring of its' Head Office to London in 1961. The crusading, liberal style established by Scott was taken forward as can be seen by the paper's excellent coverage of women's issues, race and minority affairs. The Guardian became a thorn in the side of the establishment and a champion of civil rights. The Guardian newspaper has a permanent and respected place amongst the leading international newspapers of record. The Guardian Index will open up this resource to scholars providing a radical counterpoint to the establishment news reporting of The Times. Special Features of the Index Leaders Every Leader article written for The Guardian from 1842 to 1985 is listed in the Index, broken into sub-headings. This provides users with a quick overview of the key topics of any given period. Cartoons, Maps and Illustrations Every Cartoon is identified, specifying the cartoonist (eg all those by "Low) and giving the caption. All maps, photographs and diagrams are identified, opening up a huge library of news pictures. Featured Writers/Signed Articles Among the many leading journalists, intellectuals and politicians who have contributed to The Guardian are: Brian Aldiss, John Arlott, W T Arnold, Norman Bentwich, Michael Billington, Asa Briggs, Karl Capek, Neville Cardus, Richard Crossman, C P Crozier, Alistair Cooke, Ivo Duchacek, Michael Frayn, Max Freedman, Victor Gollancz, Jo Grimond, L T Hobhouse, Simon Hoggart, Bernard Ingham, Lena Jeger, Nicholas Kaldor, Arthur Koestler, Bernard Levin, David Marquand, Henry Massingham, Henry Woodd Nevinson, A Ponsonby, Arthur Ransome, Diana Rowntree, Norman Shrapnel, Harold Spender, David Steel, R H Tawney, A J P Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Jill Tweedie, Alex Werth, Tanya Zinkin and Victor Zorza. Reviews The Index includes numerous special sections. Book Reviews are indexed (Anon, General and then by author) with between 1,000 and 2,000 entries per year. There are also sections for Art Exhibitions, Ballet, Cinema, Concerts, Drama, Opera and Television (including memorable early TV reviews by Bernard Levin). Other special topics indexed include Company Reports and Meetings, Letters to the Editor, Political Speeches, Wills and Obituaries, Sports, Women's Pages and Feature Articles. There is detailed coverage of all political and social issues by country. The originals of this unique resource are held at Manchester Central Library (the manuscript ledger index, 1842-1928) and the John Rylands University Library of Manchester (the card index, 1929-1985). Parts 1-3 (Sterling Price: £2400 - US Dollar Price Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East In Part 4 the main focus is on "International Co-operation but Limited Democracy", the Growth of Naval Power, Great Power Status and Industrial Development under Emperor Hirohito. Continuing our major microfilm series on Embassy and Consular Archives for Japan and the Far East, Part 4 makes available the subject files for the years 1927 to 1929, from PRO Class FO 262. These files comprise Detailed Correspondence and Background Papers arranged alphabetically by subject heading within each calendar year. The Annual Reports for each preceding year are included and these are a central and detailed analytical document covering all the major issues of the previous twelve months. The years 1927-1929 witness some important developments in Japan. The banking crisis of 1927 brought down Wakatsuki's cabinet. His successor was a shrewd and genial soldier-politician, General Tanaka Giichi, who had replaced Takahashi as president of the Seiyukai. This party won the General Election of 1928 (the first under conditions of Manhood Suffrage) and began to adopt a much tougher policy towards China. Tanaka was concerned about Japan's status in Manchuria. This was threatened by the advance of the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek's intentions. Tanaka sent troops to check the Kuomintang forces as they moved north. The Chinese were defeated and the Kuomintang advance into north China came to a halt. Furthermore, the Chinese war-lord of Manchuria, Chang Tso-lin was assassinated by a bomb demolishing the railway carriage in which he was travelling near Mukden. Tanaka's government was forced by the summer of 1929 to resign because of a number of difficulties, in the main part, problems arising out of the suspicious circumstances of the death of Chang Tso-lin. The 1928 conspiracy was a precursor to the events of 1931. Tanaka wanted to discipline those in the Army who were responsible, but the Emperor and the Chief of General Staff preferred to overlook the indiscipline. An important precedent was set. Hamaguchi's cabinet, containing some excellent men, took office in 1929. From here on scholars can study all the evidence about the moderate, liberal tendencies of Hamaguchi's administration against the background of increasing unease in the Army, the onset of the Depression and the expansion of the Japanese Navy. Researchers need to look at these files to fully understand the events of 1930 and 1931. There is an abundance of material on China, Japan and Manchuria. A typical telegram in the "China Political"
file (item no 768, dated 6 April 1927) reads as follows: The British Ambassador in Tokyo, Rt. Hon.
Sir J.A.C. Tilley, writes on 11 April 1927: FO 262/1677 (item 479) records an interview with Mr Tsai Tien-chin (February 18th 1927). He is extremely anti-British but hopes for good relations with Russia and Japan. As the Cantonese representative he says: "....what I am going to tell you now are the views of myself, of the nationalist party and of the nationalist government ... (on page 3 he says) ... The British question has recently become acute because of Great Britain's policy of oppression which she has pursued for the past 100 years, and the Hankow incident did not result from a trifling cause. I don't know with what object troops have been despatched, but whatever the reason, we shall have to put up with it for a time because we are deficient in real strength. The situation however is such as to give confidence that at some time we shall be able to match England and so the anti-British movement will probably be continued for the time being. I am not able to state definitely how many years from now our party's national revolution will be completed, but our sympathisers are already scattered about in all directions. Even in the North there are among the young officers many who are in sympathy with our principles. We are in suitable communication with Feng, and we determined to go on with the advancement of the happiness of the Chinese nation by means of the "3 peoples" principle...." Item 452 of the same piece number (FO 262/1677)
gives a synopsis of Editorial Comments made by the most important
Japanese newspapers on the British Proposals to China and on the
despatch of troops to Shanghai; for instance: The files on Russia and Japan reveal that both British and Japanese Governments are nervous about Russian intentions in the region. Material on Naval Disarmament sets the stage for the London Naval Disarmament Conference of 1930. The Japanese appear set to try to up their agreed ratio of cruisers and other craft vis à vis the United States. All this has to be set against the background of Hamaguchi's tough but liberal administration holding firm against the determined efforts of the Military, and the Chief of the Naval General Staff in particular, who want to overrule cabinet and privy council in adopting a far more belligerent policy. In addition there is good material on the Iron and Steel Industry in Japan, the Economic Situation, Education, Housing, the Garter Mission, Import Duties, Railways and also on prominent individuals both in Japan and abroad. For instance, within FO 262/1687 - item 7 of a file on the Iron & Steel Industry refers to the contemplated purchase of the Hanyehping Iron and Colliery Company by the Kuomintang in connection with a plan to operate various mines in Hupeh, Hunan and Kiangsi provinces. Documents make clear that any such purchase would be vigourously opposed by the Japanese Government. It is made clear that the control of these iron mines is vital for the successful operation of the Yawata Steel Works which produces more than half the iron and steel made in Japan. Analysis of presscuttings, assessments based on detailed intelligence gathered by a highly trained diplomatic corps, reports on major topics and the relentless exchange of telegrams and memoranda, provide fundamental coverage on a day by day basis. The British files held at the PRO are an essential complement to the US State Department Files for the same period. These British archives fully document Japan's changing relations with Britain and the Commonwealth, provide an in-depth British perspective on the interests of all the Great Powers in the Far East, and offer much source material for scholars concerning the relations between China and Japan, Russia and Japan, and Japan and the United States of America. As Dr Gordon Daniels (President of the European Association of Japanese Resource Specialists, Department of History, University of Sheffield) suggests "they provide invaluable analyses of Japan's social, economic and political development " and will provide social and economic historians of the period with a mass of evidence. All centres of research on Modern Japan should have this microfilm set. A paperback guide containing full contents of reels information and detailed listings covers Parts 4-6 of this microfilm edition. Please see the combined guide to Parts 1 & 2 of this project for lists of British Embassy and Consular Staff, 1905-1958 and for a full list of all major Japanese Ministers and Officials, 1901-1960. Sterling Price: £3400 - US Dollar Price: $5500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Part 5 concentrates on the period 1930-1933:
the Early 'Thirties - the Growth of the Military, the World Financial
Crisis, the Invasion of Manchuria, Events in Manchuria, Shanghai
and the Lytton Commission Report. There are particularly strong
files on subjects such as: This microfilm edition provides scholars
with all the FO 262 files for these years. They comprise In September 1931 the Japanese Army in Guangdong,
claiming that an explosion on the Japanese owned South Manchuria
Railway had been caused by Chinese saboteurs, seized control of
the arsenals at Mukden and at several other cities nearby. Chinese
troops were forced to withdraw from the area. Entirely without official
sanction by the Japanese Government, and often exceeding the wishes
of its own field commanders, the Guangdong Army operations were
extended into all Manchuria. After about five months the Japanese
forces were in possession of the entire region. The officers involved
were influenced by the expansionist ideals of secret societies such
as the Black Dragon Society. These men were keen to promote the
national interests of Japan by conquest regardless of the orders
of party politicians or higher command. The result was that Manchuria
was established as the puppet state of Manchukuo. All pretence of
party government in Japan began to evaporate as a result of the
occupation of Manchuria. A number of politicians were terrorised
and These momentous events are well covered in the FO 262 files. Britain considered that she had a strong sphere of interest in China. The files for 1930 and 1931 provide interesting backgound detail in the months before the crisis. There is much detail on China from 1930 to 1933 in this part of this microfilm series. A Report by Miles Lampson (see FO 262/1746) describing his Journey from Tientsin (left on 3 January 1930) to Peking (arrived 23 February 1930) provides good detail in its 58 folios. Lampson, Head of the British Legation in Peking, was accompanied on his trip by Mr Teichman (Chinese Counsellor), Mr Sterndale Bennett (Second Secretary), Mr Clarke (Private Secretary), Captain Harding (Cypher Officer) and Mr Marshall (Stenographer). On folio 57 Lampson concludes: "I feel however that the time has come to make a gradual change. Our interests in Shanghai are so important that it will, in any case, be desirable for my representative to continue to spend a part, and perhaps a considerable part, of his time there. But in view of the growing number of questions which are taken up with the Central Government, Nanking may well become more and more the official base of my representative, though as all the principal members of the Government, and especially the Minister for Foreign Affairs, inevitably spend from Friday to Monday in Shanghai, even this is by no means certain. It is possible therefore that before this despatch reaches you I may have already made by telegraph proposals for increasing available accomodation at Nanking.... so as to place the organisation of diplomatic work at Nanking, both during my visits and in the intervals between, on a more settled, satisfactory and efficient basis." Earlier on folio 54 Miles Lampson had recorded:
There is much in Lampson's report about feelings of uncetainty and apprehension "in the minds of British subjects and more particularly of British merchants ...."; there is full discussion of the Chinese mandate of December 26th declaring foreign nationals to be subject to Chinese laws and regulations as from January 1st 1930; detail on negotiations about extraterritoriality and the status, position and privileges of British subjects in China. FO 262/1747 includes the Treaty Agreement relating to the Chinese Courts in the International Settlement at Shanghai, Nanking, February 17, 1930. Throughout there is a great deal of information on China. The following extract from the "Political
Report" section of the Report of the Commander-in-Chief, China
Station, - 15th August to 21st October 1929 - and Political Report,
by Vice-Admiral A.K. Waistell on board HMS Kent at Woosung, 21st
October 1929, comes from File 164 in FO 262/1758: On Manchuria FO 262/1799 provides a good
example of the extent of information - there are 16 files for this
one piece number. The principal focus of attention is the general
feeling in the country towards the Manchukuo Administration and
the Japanese. This file is for 1932. There is much discussion and
analysis concerning the Kwantung Government; lots of material written
by the British Ambassador in Tokyo (Lindley) with interesting annotations.
There are translations of the Proceedings of various Government
Committees with comments thereon. The following extract is from
FO 262/1799, from a translation re: an Interpellation on Manchuria
in the Budget Committee meeting, August 30th 1932: For the Lytton Commission Report please see the two files for 1932 in FO 262/1802. For material on Japan and America there
are a number of good files eg: FO 262/1821 covering 1932. One topic
covered is the Alleged "dumping" of Japanese Goods in
the United States. A memorandum drawn up by Mr Sansom, the Commercial
Counsellor to the British Embassy in Tokyo, for the attention of
the Foreign Office and Ambassador Lindley, notes as follows: Both Britain and the United States appear
at this time to have some deep concern over the threat of Communism
in Japan. The files reveal that a close watch was kept on the JCP
and any pressure groups or individuals with communist sympathies.
For example, see FO 262/1848. Colonel E.A.H. James, Military Attaché
at the British Embassy at Tokyo, writes on 1st November 1933: There are a number of very large files on
the Control of Drug Traffic. FO 262/1748: File 11 includes Regulations
for the Control of Narcotic Drugs in Formosa; documents on investigations
into Cocaine smuggling and an article published in the provincial
editions of the Osaka Asahi, February 16 & 18, 1930.
The following is an extract from folio 261: FO 262/1749 includes documents and minutes of the Thirteenth Session of the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs. FO 262/1753 contains an interesting letter
from Sir John Tilley (British Ambassador in Tokyo) to Arthur Henderson,
MP, 20 January 1930. It concerns Japan & Pacifism; Tilley writes:
On the subject of Feminism and Anti-Feminism in Japan, FO 262/1760 folio 139 has the following paragraph: "It is true, as I have on occasion pointed out, and as was recently well put in an article by Mr Arnold Toynbee, that the "spread of Western civilisation" and "the Europeanisation of Japan" exist largely in the imagination of journalists. Nevertheless one thing which is also true is that the movement for the greater independence of women is strong, especially among the younger generation, who are rapidly being educated, and are determined to assert themselves." All centres with an emphasis on research on Modern Japan in the inter-war period should have this microfilm set. These files provide far more than just political analysis; there is a great deal on social issues, the economy, agriculture, customs, culture and intellectual life in Japan during this period. A paperback guide containing full contents of reels information and a detailed listings accompanies this microfilm edition. It covers Parts 4-6 (the years 1927-1940) in a single guide. There were no embassy and consular records during the war years. Series Three covers the post-1945 material in the FO 262 files. The combined guide to Parts 1 & 2 of Series One of this microfilm project provides lists of all British Embassy and Consular Staff, 1905-1958 and a full list of all major Japanese Ministers and Officials, 1901-1960. Sterling Price: £1950 - US Dollar Price: $3125 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Part 6 concentrates on the period 1934-1940
with emphasis on Economic and Military Expansion, withdrawal from
the League of Nations, the North China Incident, European Crisis
and an "Open Door" in the Far East. There are particularly strong
files on such key subjects as: This microfilm edition, follows on from Part 5, providing scholars with all the FO 262 files for the years 1934-1940. Comprising Detailed Correspondence and Background Papers, there is little doubt from their contents that the main issues of the day lay with Japan's intended foreign policy, particularly in relation to China, Manchuria and the threat to British, American and Dutch interests in the Far East. This was a time of great upheaval in Japan, with the military enjoying great influence in politics and a general atmosphere of patriotic fervour contributing to the uncertainty. A consensus of opinion throughout the country called for territorial expansion in order to gain raw materials the burgeoning economy, and to shield Japan from any Soviet threat. Internally, there were few opponents of an expansionist policy with most communist leaders imprisoned or exiled, and schools and colleges purged of leftist sympathisers, leaving a clear field for those propounding an imperialist future for Japan. Following the Tangku Truce of 1933 which left Japan in control of much of North China, hostilities were renewed in 1937, but even an alliance between Communist and Nationalist Chinese forces could not make progress against the Japanese. By the beginning of 1938 Nanking had fallen and Japan was announcing her 'immutable policy' of establishing a New Order in North East Asia, claiming a dominant position in Chinese affairs and justifying her military intervention as self defence aimed at restoring stability to the region. These important events are well covered in the FO 262 files. Britain considered that she had a strong sphere of influence in China and accordingly the British diplomats and consular staff covering the region kept a meticulous watch on developments. The files are full of well recorded observations and Foreign Office analyses. The following extracts give a good flavour of the type of information gathered and the conclusions drawn: Chancery, British Embassy, Tokyo, 25 June,
1935 Memorandum. The Nationalist Movement in
Japan. British Embassy, Tokyo, 2 March, 1938: 18 January, 1938: To: Foreign Office - Confidential. British Embassy, Tokyo. 23
March, 1938: The outbreak of the Second World War and the ensuing conflict in the Far East between Japan and Great Britain ensured that diplomatic contacts between the two countries were suspended for the duration of hostilities. As a result of the closure of the British Embassy and consulates in Japan, there is no FO 262 material for Japan for the years 1941-1945. The class resumes after the War when day-to-day diplomatic representation was resumed. As Dr. Kaoru Sugihara, Chairman of the Japan Research Centre, SOAS, at the University of London, states "The Japanese and Asian Studies materials offered by Adam Matthew Publications will be welcomed by scholars working in the area." Sterling Price: £1000 - US Dollar Price: $1625 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Japan, 1952-1980 "It is most welcome news that the files
on Japan from the Public Record Office for the years 1952-1962 are
now available on microfilm. Students of post-World War II Japanese
foreign affairs, international relations, the Cold War, and US and
UK foreign policies will find here a wealth of invaluable material.
Historians have found Public Record Office documents the main starting
point for their research, and, given the still undeveloped field
of post-war Japanese history, these documents are certain to provide
new data and fresh perspectives that will contribute enormously
to our knowledge." This collection of documents covers the crucial period of Japanese development from the end of the Allied Occupation in 1952, to the establishment of Japan as a major economic power in the early 1960s. Making available for the first time Files only Recently Opened to Research, the material in this archive contains a wealth of information from the British Foreign Office Central Political Files concerning Japan. Drawing on Reports, Correspondence, Telegrams, Memoranda, Despatches, Official Instructions and Regular Communications between the Foreign Office and the British Embassy and Consulates in Japan, many of the most pressing issues of the day are discussed and appraised. Subjects covered range in scope from Annual
Reports and fortnightly summaries of events in Japan (for each year
covered in the series), Japanese political, social and economic
issues, to criminal jurisdiction over UN forces in Japan, foreign
relations and territorial disputes. "These British archives provide invaluable
analyses of Japan's social, economic and political development,
and fully document her changing relations with Britain and the Commonwealth."
Part 1 covers files for 1952-1953, the years that saw the resumption of full national sovereignty for Japan and efforts to boost national productivity in order to catch up with the West. Specific files for this period include: 1952: 1953: Scholars and Researchers can examine Yoshida's success in implementing the Security Treaty with the United States, the conversion of the National Police Reserve into the National Security Force, the fulfilment of his undertaking to John Foster Dulles to conclude a Peace Treaty with Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists on Formosa, the passage of the Subversive Activities Law, the important role of Chief Justice Tanaka Kotaro and understand the development of Japan's post-war industrial strength through the wealth of evidence assembled in these British files. The following two extracts give an impression of some of the other material: FO 371/105462 FO 371/99404 Full contents of reel information is available on the first reel of each part. The paperback guide covers Parts 1-4 of this microfilm project which provides complete files for each year for the period 1952-1962. Sterling Price: £2950 - US Dollar Price: $4800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office Files for Post-War Japan, 1952-1980 (Public Record Office Class FO 371) Part 2: Complete files for 1954-1956 (PRO Class FO 371/110400-110530, 115220-115306 & 121030-121101) 39 reels of 35mm silver-halide positive microfilm The listing and guide covers Parts 1-4 Part 2 covers files for 1954-1956, a period of rapid economic growth and development for Japan, which also saw her entry into GATT and the United Nations. Subjects covered in Part 2 include: 1954: 1955: 1956: The following extracts give an impression of some of the material: FO 371/115226 FO 371/110498 Extract from FO 371/121034 The calculation of the Socialist Party seems to have been that provided the conservatives could be provoked into calling on the police public opinion would once again move against the Government, and the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party is known privately to have defied his Liberal-Democratic counterpart to introduce police forces to the Diet. No doubt the Socialists had it in mind that at the time of the notorious Diet brawl of June 3, 1954, the conservative Speaker was much criticised for calling policemen into the Diet building despite the fact that the Socialists had themselves brought in some trade union thugs. But in fact this year the press was unanimous in its criticism of Socialist conduct in the Diet, and many papers have called on the electors to show their disapproval by refusing their votes to Socialist candidates in the Upper House election next month. The elector is, however, faced with a Hobson's choice, for he can have confidence in neither of the two parties since both have shown themselves so irresponsible in the course of this Diet Session. Should the Liberal-Democrats do well in the forthcoming elections the Government will probably call an extraordinary session of the Diet and pass all the legislation which has now failed to win approval, introducing new bills in the place of those which have been dropped. In that case the violence of the twenty-fourth session will have served no purpose other than to bring parliamentary democracy in Japan into further disrepute. Should, however, the Socialists manage to win one-third of the seats in the House of Councillors, amendment of the Constitution which requires a two-thirds majority in both houses will not be possible for the next three years and parliamentary business may then be able to proceed in a calmer atmosphere..." Sterling Price: £3025 - US Dollar Price: $4900 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Japan, 1952-1980 Part 3 brings together the complete files for 1957-1959 looking at such issues and events as: Kishi and the Liberal Democrats Relations with the Soviet Union Friction in relations with the United States Opposition to Nuclear Tests Long term defence plans, choice of fighter
aircraft and tests of guided missiles in Japan Industrial Relations in Japan Retirement of Sir Esler Dening The United Nations Korea and the release and repatriation of
detainees Anglo-Japanese Trade and Commerce Japan and Formosa Japan and China Socialist boycotts of the Japanese Diet
Sterling Price: £1250 - US Dollar Price: $2025 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Japan, 1952-1980 Part 4 provides the files for 1960-1962, years that witnessed Japan's continued rapid economic growth and emergence on the world stage as a major economic power. As well as regular features such as files on Japan: Annual Review, Fortnightly reports on political situation, Japan's foreign trade, Political relations between Japan and Soviet Union, Political relations between Japan and the United States and Political relations between Japan and the UK there are files on the following subjects: 1960: 1961: 1962: Sterling Price: £1950 - US Dollar Price: $3150 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Japan, 1952-1980 This continues our microfilm project on
Post-War Japan covering the years 1963 to 1965. The Annual Review for Japan for 1962 in the British Foreign Office Files (see FO 371/170743) reports that: "Japan has continued to improve her international standing, and Mr Ikeda's two successive governments have strengthened their links with the free world. Relations with Britain have been especially cordial: Princess Chichibu, the sister-in-law of the Emperor, paid an official visit to Britain in July, and Mr Hayato Ikeda, the Prime Minister, spent three days in London in November as the guest of Her Majesty's Government, and witnessed the signature of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation." During 1963 the Liberal Democrats did well at the General Election in November, the economy surged forward and Japan consolidated her position as a front rank power. In 1964 Japan became a full member of OECD and hosted the annual meeting of the IMF Bank. Japan was accorded Article 8 status in the IMF. GNP increased in Japan by 9% and in this year the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo. Japan surpassed all nations except the United States and the Soviet Union to become the third geatest producer of steel in the world. Japan continued to dominate the shipbuilding world with a prolific output in terms of tonnage of ships built. An entirely new rail link between Tokyo and Osaka was constructed to allow trains to run at speeds of well over 100mph. A chill wind reverberated around the Pacific six days after the opening of the Olympiad. China tested its first atomic bomb. More tests were to follow in 1966. Tensions with Communist China added to frictions in the region caused by the escalation and increasing impact and severity of the war in Vietnam. In November 1964, Ikeda resigned due to ill health. He was succeeded by Sato Eisaku, Mr Kishi's younger brother. In 1965 Japan re-established relations with the Republic of Korea. Throughout the period, as the files in this microfilm edition demonstrate, Japan did everything possible to foster good relations with the United States and Britain. March 2000 Sterling Price: £1400 - US Dollar Price: $2250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Japan and the Far East Series Three of this microfilm project from
the Public Record Office provides detailed correspondence for Throughout the files scholars can find the assessments of the Ambassador - Sir Charles Gascoigne - and other Embassy Staff, the Allied Council for Japan, the U.K. Liaison Mission in Japan and from 1952 the reorganisation of Consular Representation after Sovereign Independence. There is excellent material from the British
perspective on: The following extracts provide an insight into the type of material covered in these files: Extract from interview with General Douglas
MacArthur (FO 262/2056), Wednesday March 19,1947: Extract from "Top Secret" Interview with
J F Dulles on Peace Treaty Extract from a letter from U.K. Liaison
Mission in Japan, to M.E. Denning at the Foreign Office in London
Confidential minutes, concerning Korean
claims (FO 262/2114), November 1955: This is followed by a hand-written annotation
at the foot of the note states: The next extract is taken from an article
in Nippon Times, 23 November, 1947: The next long extract is a telegram from
A D V Gascoigne, British Political Representative in Tokyo, to "Guard. Top Secret. Supreme Commander said that from perusal
of SEALF's reply it seemed obvious to him that the British did not
mean to keep their pledge of completing repatriation of Japanese
Surrendered Personnel from South East Asia by the end of 1947. From
his intimate knowledge of this question, and of the repercussions
which there had already been in the United States and in Japan (here
he mentioned that the State Department had expressed most bitter
feelings at our retention of these Japanese during 1947, and that
he was being continually bombarded by the Japanese Prime Minister
on the subject) he felt sure that the United Kingdom Government
would find themselves most awkwardly placed in world opinion if
their present pledge was not kept. He fully realized that the commander
at Singapore was, quite naturally, only looking to the local advantages
to be gained by retaining the personnel (advantages which he, MacArthur,
felt were greatly exaggerated). In any case local benefit derived
from services of 90,000 JSPs would be completely outweighed by world
wide odium which would fall upon us. If we did not succeed in repatriating
these personnel by the stipulated time there would be intense anti-British
press campaign in the United States, and much anti-British propaganda
in Japan. The Russians, who had agreed to repatriate not less than
50,000 a month from Russian controlled areas, were now speeding
this up, and he thought that if we did not succeed in repatriating
our Japanese by the end of this year that the Russians would probably
'beat us to it'. General was really, and I think, sincerely, concerned
over what he termed the 'stain which would blemish the honour of
the United Kingdom' in the event of our not fulfilling our promise;
he went so far as to say to me that if shipping and other facilities
which he had now vouchsafed to SEALF were not sufficient, he might
give some further assistance. He was trying to husband a reserve
of some 50 Liberty ships in Japanese waters, which would be permanently
stationed here in the event of trouble with Korea (for the transport
of troops from Japan to Korea) from which he might draw. The next extract is from a letter from UK Liaison Mission in Japan, to M E Dening at the Foreign Office in London (FO 262/2056), 11 December 1947: "During an interview which Macrae
and I held this morning with the Supreme Commander on the occasion
of Macrae's departure from Tokyo, MacArthur returned to the subject
of the Japanese peace conference and spoke on the same lines as
he had done to me on the 28th November. Then there is the following minute sheet by A J Gascoigne that underlines the complex relationship between political and commercial affairs that prevailed during the Occupation (FO 262/2060), October 1948: "Export of explosives from Japan: (1.) 6000/6500 cases of X22.5 dynamite (2.) (4.) (5.) (6.) (7.) (8.) A J Gascoigne, 2nd October, 1948. There are no FO 262 files for the war years between 1940 and 1945. The PRO Class FO 262 was discontinued after 1957. Nevertheless FO262 files for the period 1945-1957 are a valuable research resource for all social historians. They complement and certainly do not duplicate FO 371 files. They provide a wealth of detail from highly trained diplomats who were pulling together day-to-day analysis of events on the spot, either in Tokyo, Osaka or at one of the various other consular offices throughout Japan. Full contents of reel information is provided on each reel of film. Series Three is complete in only 7 reels. However, the material is very rich indeed. The material is organised in such a way that there is one file per piece number. For more details please see the Contents of Reels information below. Sterling Price: £550 - US Dollar Price: $875 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Europe Within this microfilm collection of British
Foreign Office Files can be found documents that relate directly
to the fundamental questions of European co-operation and integration.
The foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community in April
1951 was the first significant move towards European Union requiring
countries to forsake a degree of national sovereignty and accept
a supranational authority. Proposed by French Foreign Minister Robert
Schuman and drafted by Jean Monnet, head of the French Planning
Commission, it made clear its federal objectives: These British Foreign Office Files include: Britain, always preferring an inter-governmental rather than a federal approach, monitored the plan closely and the Foreign Office Files provide detailed analysis of the discussions from 1950 to 1957. The ECSC Treaty was signed in Paris by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In part, the momentum developed for such an agreement reflected the influence of key people committed to some form of "common future" for Western Europe: Schuman and Monnet in France, Adenauer in West Germany, Alcide de Gàsperi and Carlo Sforza in Italy, Paul-Henri Spaak in Belgium, and Joseph Beck in Luxembourg. From 1951 onwards, it set the tone for renewed debate culminating in the establishment of the European Economic Community, a landmark reached in 1957. The original draft of the Schuman Plan was the work of Jean Monnet, who certainly saw it as only the first step in a chain that would ultimately lead to complete political and economic integration. What were the original motives of the French
and the Germans? These papers allow scholars to study the aims and
objectives of the two major players, for example: Similarly German motives can be assessed: Jean Monnet became first president of the High Authority of the ECSC and remained in office until June 1955. The files in this collection allow researchers to see the ECSC in operation, to witness the problems, to judge its achievements and to investigate how the ECSC acted as a stimulus for greater European co-operation in the years from 1951-1957. Important groundwork laid the foundations for the creation of an economic common market. By 1958 much trade discrimination had been eliminated, production and volume of trade had greatly expanded. Non-members like Britain found it vital to maintain permanent delegations in Luxembourg accredited to the High Authority. On the other hand there were problems: Part 1 of this project covers the early years of the Schuman Plan from 1950 to 1953, and deals with the key issues facing the six countries who signed the treaty, as well as the implications of Britain's decision to remain outside the organisation. Taken from British Foreign Office Files, the following extracts are a sample of the kind of material to be found in Part 1 of this collection: Memorandum on French proposal to establish
Franco-German coal and steel authority, May 1950. "It is easier to understand the motives and timing of the French proposal than to estimate its value. French efforts since the war to establish a control of Ruhr industry have been progressively frustrated. They have realised for three years that an extra-territorial status for the Ruhr was not practical politics. Subsequent attempts to establish international ownership were equally unsuccessful. In 1947 M Bidault made the following statement at the Conference of Foreign Ministers in London: 'France is not opposed, and never has been opposed to the revival of a peaceful German economy, nor to the establishment of a normal standard of living for the German people. She merely asks that Germany's resources shall in no event be used for the preparation of aggression and , on the other hand, that the restoration of Germany shall not have priority over that of the Allied countries. In order to comply with those requirements of security, it is necessary firstly to ensure that a special regime be applied to the Ruhr, principle centre of German mining and metal resources'..." Report of a meeting held in the Home Secretary's
room in the House of Commons on "The meeting was called by Mr Nutting to consider the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards the Council of Europe and to decide whether any general statement of policy should be made in the consultative Assembly by the leader of the United Kingdom Delegation. It was generally agreed that a statement was desirable and that it should be as positive as possible. Mr Foster hoped that we might be able to make a definite statement on our relationship with the Schuman community and the European Army. Lord Hood pointed out that the two schemes were in very different stages of development and that it would be impossible to treat them together. It was, however, agreed that some statement on our position in relation to the Schuman Plan would be both possible and politically desirable. Mr Nutting suggested that the proposed statement might declare that His Majesty's Government intended, once the Schuman treaty is ratified, to establish a permanent mission at the seat of the High Authority to enter into relations and to transact business. Such a statement would, it was felt, be most warmly welcomed at Strasbourg and in Europe as a whole. The Home Secretary agreed to consult the cabinet and seek its approval." These typescript, English language primary sources will be easy for students to use for project work, as well as offering significant research potential for senior scholars. A paperback guide covers all 3 Parts.
"John Young's recent historiography
of Britain and Europe (in The Contemporary History Handbook edited
by Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Europe Part 2 deals with British attitudes to the Schuman Plan from 1954 to 1955, and looks at the continuing problems that the UK had in balancing her position as a European nation whilst upholding her Commonwealth obligations. Britain, still preferring an inter-governmental rather than a federal approach, monitored the plan closely and the Foreign Office Files reproduced here provide detailed analysis of the discussions from 1954 to 1955. The following two extracts provide a flavour of the material, with the French at this time continuing to push for complete British involvement: From files for January 1954: A Record of
a Meeting between Sir Cecil Weir and Messrs Monnet, Etzel and Spierenburg,
December 1953 (see FO 371/111250): Letter to Eden from Sir Cecil Weir, 17
February 1954 (see FO 371/111322): Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files for Post-War Europe Proposed by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and drafted by Jean Monnet, head of the French Planning Commission, the ECSC founded in April 1951, made clear from the outset its federal objectives: "The pooling of coal and steel production will immediately provide for the establishment of common bases for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims." These British Foreign Office Files covered in the final part of our microfilm project covering the ECSC, taken from Public Record Office Class FO 371, contain papers covering all the major issues raised by the creation of the ECSC. As well as looking at the ramifications of the pooling of European coal and steel production, these documents investigate the wider issues stemming from this move for both Britain and continental Europe. The ECSC Treaty was signed in Paris in 1951 by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In part, the momentum developed for such an agreement reflected the influence of key people committed to some form of "common future" for Western Europe: Schuman and Monnet in France, Adenauer in West Germany, Alcide de Gàsperi and Carlo Sforza in Italy, Paul-Henri Spaak in Belgium, and Joseph Beck in Luxembourg. From 1951 onwards, it set the tone for renewed debate culminating in the establishment of the European Economic Community, a landmark reached in 1957. Britain, however, always preferring an inter-governmental rather than a federal approach, did not sign up, but nonetheless monitored the plan closely. The Foreign Office Files included in this collection contain the information and analysis that resulted from this monitoring. The original draft of the Schuman Plan was the work of Jean Monnet, who certainly saw it as only the first step in a chain that would ultimately lead to the complete political and economic integration of Europe. Monnet became first president of the High Authority of the ECSC and remained in office until June 1955, during which time he continued to imprint his federalist creed upon the organisation. But what were the original motives of the French and the Germans for signing up to the Community? These papers allow scholars to study the aims and objectives of these two major players, and provide British interpretations of their actions and intentions. The documents in this collection allow researchers to see the ECSC in operation, to witness the problems, to judge its achievements, and to investigate how it acted as a stimulus for greater European co-operation in the years from 1951-1957. In them can be found much information on the important groundwork which laid the foundations for the creation of the EEC. There are also the first signs of Britain's continuing ambiguous relationship with Europe and the idea of integration. Although the United Kingdom decided to remain outside of the formal ECSC structure, she found it vital to maintain permanent delegations in Luxembourg accredited to the High Authority. By 1958 the effects of the ECSC were being felt, much trade discrimination had been eliminated, production and volume of trade had greatly expanded and an impetus for further integration started. On the other hand there were problems; the ECSC constantly had to wrestle with national objections and intransigence; the French in particular continuing various policies and practices which infringed the terms of the treaty. Furthermore, no solution was found to stem coal over-production. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, the ECSC set the agenda for further European integration, and remains a topic of central importance to any scholar wishing to understand the beginnings of the European Community, and the pressure to create a federal Europe. Part 3 covers the years 1956-1957 which saw the Community playing a defining role in the development of Europe, and the broadening of its interest into other areas such as nuclear power and relations with other organisations such as the United Nations and GATT. These typescript, English language primary sources will be easy for students to use for project work, as well as offering significant research potential for senior scholars. A paperback guide covers all three parts. April 1999 Sterling Price: £2175 - US Dollar Price: $3500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America FO 371 is known to scholars of modern history as the "backbone" class of the Foreign Office files in the British Public Record Office. In it are found the great mass of key documents produced by the Foreign Office. These are an excellent complement to the US State Department files. This series provides comprehensive coverage of all FO 371 files for each US administration from 1960 onwards. Material includes: Annual review files describing, in a single
document, the overall trends and activities in a given country in
a particular year. Part 1 of the series starts with complete coverage of FO 371/ USA for the Kennedy years, 1960-1963. President Kennedy's visits to the UK and Europe are fully documented including his 1963 visit to Berlin, as well as visits by Johnson, Nixon, and Senators Fullbright, Anderson and Irwin, and George Ball of the US State Department. There is much material on US Aid and the Mutual Security Programme including reports on the US military presence in Europe and around the world,. nuclear tests, weather stations and the Atlantic Under-water test and Evaluation Centre in the Bahamas. The relations of America with British Commonwealth nations is also well documented, especially regarding the West Indies, Rhodesia, British Guiana, Nigeria, the Pacific Islands and Australia. There are special files on racial discrimination, civil rights, aid to Latin America (the 'Alliance for Peace' programme), the space race, Khruschev's visit to the United Nations, and the assassination of President Kennedy and international reaction to his death. This project provides an ideal basis for the study of the United States during the Kennedy years, Anglo-American relations, international diplomacy, the impending crisis in Vietnam, Cuba, economics, trade and the continuing growth of a super-power. Part 1 contains key files on: The following extract from FO 371/168405,
the Annual Review for 1962, gives a taste of he material. It starts: Part 2 of the series provides files for the Lyndon B Johnson Administration; whilst Part 3 will cover the Nixon years. "All three series of Foreign Office Files: United States of America should be warmly welcomed for making easily accessible, materials indispensable to a fuller, international history of the Cold War." Michael H Hunt, Emerson Professor of History, Sterling Price: £2025 - US Dollar Price: $3300 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America Lyndon B Johnson's term of office witnessed one of the most fruitful periods of legislation in American history, with 226 of his 252 requests successfully passed by Congress. He came into office determined to address the domestic problems of poverty and race relations which were threatening to overwhelm American society. But his despite his ambitions and domestic achievements, his term of office is always inevitably overshadowed by his foreign policy decisions. Whatever his radical intentions to remodel American society, he will always be remembered as the President who got the American combat troops embroiled in the conflict in Vietnam. The documents included in this microfilm collection, however, reflect the wide range of events and developments that characterised the mid to late 1960's and allow scholars a more balanced view of Johnson's achievements and failures. The files created by the British Foreign Office provide an overview of America during this crucial stage of world history, and provide much information and interpretation of how the US and its government reacted to such events as: The escalation of the Vietnam War and the
involvement of American combat troops Of course, the purpose of these documents was not simply to accrue data for its own sake. The Labour government in Britain, had returned to power in 1964, and its leader Harold Wilson was keen to continue the 'special relationship' between Britain and the US which had been developed by the previous Conservative administrations. Defence matters and co-operation between Britain, the Commonwealth and the USA make up a significant proportion of the collection. Other areas of especial emphasis include Britain's trade and political relations with the USA, and with other countries, particularly Cuba. The files included here also reveal how important it was to the British to comprehend American society and politics in order to maintain good relations with the US. Accordingly there are numerous documents detailing and analysing the goings-on in Washington and the personalities involved, as well as more general reports on opinion and events across America: Annual reviews for 1964-1967 Please Note: Following on from Part 1 of the Series, which covered the John F Kennedy years, Part 2 provides the chronological continuation for Johnson's term of office, 1964-1968. Part 3 of the series will provide the FCO 7 (USA) files for the Richard M Nixon years. Sterling Price: £2350 - US Dollar Price: $3800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America "Few wars in recent times have demanded such close attention as the Vietnam war. This collection covers a period when Britain risked being drawn into conflicts developing throughout Indo-China, and will be of enormous value to all those researching this period." Professor Lawrence Freedman Although Britain was not directly involved in the Vietnam War she did have substantial interests in South East Asia, and was anxious to monitor the situation closely. And whilst Britain regarded the United States as her principal ally, she was not uncritical of American diplomacy and military initiatives. The finely honed reporting skills of the Foreign Office were brought to bear on the situation and their testimony forms a useful complement to the evidence given in US State Department Files. We may not agree with the comment of H A F Hohler (the British Ambassador to Vietnam) that "we who are much less closely engaged in the day-to-day conduct of the war, are able to see things more clearly", but Britain's experience in Malaya in the 1940s and 1950s and her involvement in India, Burma, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong gave her an important, alternative perspective. Scholars interested in the implications of the war from a Pacific Rim viewpoint will also find important evidence in these files concerning the attitudes of Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth nations towards the war. The first four parts of this project cover all of the relevant FO 371 Files for the period 1959-1963, taken from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, SEATO, and South East Asia General sections. Part 1 covers the complete run of FO 371 Files for Vietnam for 1959-1963, the period that witnessed the start of the armed struggle in the South by the communists to unite the country under their control; and the United States' efforts to secure the survival of an independent non-communist South Vietnam. The period ends with the overthrow and execution of President Diem, and a considerable and growing American presence in South Vietnam. By the late 1950s the nature of the Vietnam conflict had changed from a nationalist struggle against colonialism, to a war of world wide significance. The Americans in particular, during this period became increasingly drawn into the conflict as the prospect of a unified communist Vietnam loomed ever larger and the weaknesses of the regime in the South was exposed. Investing massive amounts of military and civil resources in the South to bolster the regime, the United States laid the foundations for their later role in the war when American forces would take on active combat duties and the full weight of the United States' military might would be brought to bear against the Viet Cong and their Northern patrons. The documents in Part 1 of the Series contains material covering the momentous developments of this crucial early period of the Vietnam conflict, with specific files giving the British view on: The internal political situation in North
and South Vietnam There is also a great deal of material covering Anglo-American discussions, dispatches from the British Embassy and reports on visits to the area by British politicians and diplomats. Much interest is also shown in military affairs with weekly reports on the operations against the Viet Cong, giving detailed analysis of the situation and statistics. The following extracts, taken from documents in the collection, give an idea of the kind of material to be found in Part 1. The first extract, from the Annual Report for 1958 on North and South Vietnam [FO 371/144387], highlights British concerns about the increasingly repressive nature of the South Vietnamese government and fears that it could alienate important sections of the population: "...If M. Diem's régime has thus done fairly well over providing bread it has been less successful with its circuses. A policy of concentrating on a few limited if massive objectives and postponing everything else, including progress towards greater political freedom, as luxuries which the country cannot afford at present, has obvious drawbacks. Those sections of the population not directly involved in the tasks in hand, and this includes a large proportion of the educated, professional and business classes in the larger towns, become increasingly frustrated. It may be unfair, though certainly not surprising, but the impression has grown during the year that M. Diem's régime is moving toward greater intolerance and increasing despotism. The constant problem of internal security obviously postulates a strong executive, and armed communist subversion has to be countered by strong arm methods. Again M. Diem's agrarian reform, which involves a major redistribution and resettlement of population, cannot be carried through without a measure of arbitrary authority. The Government are thus largely the prisoners of circumstances and could hardly, even if they wished, move very far towards genuine democracy. Nor, during the year, has there been any sign of an effectively organised opposition emerging to urge them in this direction. But their critics increased both in number and in outspokenness..." The next extract, part of a secret telegram from Washington to the Foreign Office dated March 1961 and taken from a file on the Internal Political Situation of Vietnam [FO 371/160110], illustrates how Britain's experiences in Malaya were regarded as valuable in relation to advising on the Vietnamese situation, and how those same experiences made British diplomats far less sanguine about developments than their American counterparts. Concerns about the poor reputation that Diem's government enjoyed, this time in the West, are again expressed: "...the American side, in reviewing
the situation in Vietnam said that they were conscious of the need
for liberalization of the Diem regime. The American Ambassador had
made repeated suggestions to the Vietnamese on this point. There
was some indication of responsiveness on President Diem's part.
It was felt, however, that certain Western observers, especially
newspaper-men, tend to overemphasise the shortcomings of the regime. The final extract, from FO 371/ 170092, gives an indication of how Britain, though not ostensibly involved in events, did have an important behind the scenes role in shaping political events in Vietnam: "Visit of the Vietnamese Ambassador, 22 August 1963 Monsieur Luyen's object is doubtless to
justify the declaration of martial law by his brother, President
Diem, yesterday morning, and the government raids of the previous
night on all the main Buddhist pagodas.... Parts 2-4 of this Series will complete the project for the period 1959-1963 by taking a broader geographical and political view. Parts 2 and 3 will bring together all the FO 371 South East Asia Department files for Laos and Cambodia; with Part 4 covering Thailand, SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organisation), and all relevant South East Asia General files. Together all four parts provide a comprehensive British overview of the Vietnam war and its repercussions during this period, not only in Vietnam itself, but throughout South East Asia and beyond. Further sets will continue the theme up to 1975. "Publication of these documents promises to facilitate research in records crucial to understanding British foreign policy, US diplomacy, and international relations in the Cold War era." Peter Hahn Associate Professor of History, Ohio State University Sterling Price: £2550 - US Dollar Price: $4175 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America Parts 2 and 3 of this microfilm project bring together all FO 371/ South East Asia Department files for Laos and Cambodia for the period 1959-1963. These include: Annual Review files; notes on the internal political situation in Laos and Cambodia; files on political relations with China, France, Thailand, the United States, the Soviet Union, India, Vietnam and other countries; files concerning the International Control Commission in Laos (vast for 1959 to 1961); files on the commercial relations with other nations; notes concerning the provision of aid to the army of Laos and the training of the army of Laos; reports on the police, education, festivals and royal family in Laos; papers of the International Supervisory Commission in Cambodia; UN policy in the region; French views on the region; reports on elections; papers of the Geneva Conference on Laos and negotiations on a cease-fire; reports on the status of foreign troops in the area; and notes on Anglo-US-Soviet talks in Laos. "Publication of these documents
promises to facilitate research in records crucial to understanding
British foreign policy, US diplomacy, and international relations
in the Cold War era." Peter Hahn A flavour of the material can be gleaned from the following four extracts: The Annual Review for Laos for 1958 (see
FO 371/143956) compiled by the British Embassy at Vientiane and
despatched to the Foreign Office in London on 9 February 1959 sounds
quite encouraging, although cautious: However, events in the region were soon to deteriorate sharply...... The Annual Review for Laos for 1959 (see
FO 371/152317) states: The Annual Review for Laos for 1961 (see
FO 371/166423) records that: The Annual Review for Laos for 1962, compiled
by D C Hopson at the British Embassy in Vientiane and despatched
to Lord Home at the Foreign Office on 15 January 1963, (see FO 371/169802)
states: This microfilm edition provides a thorough grounding for numerous project topics and a clear picture of the complex problems of the region. March 2000 Sterling Price: £3950 - US Dollar Price: $6500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America Part 3 of this microfilm project brings together all FO 371/ South East Asia Department files for Cambodia for the period 1959-1963. These include: Annual Review files; notes on the internal political situation in Cambodia; files on political relations with China, France, Thailand, Laos, the United States, the Soviet Union, India, Vietnam and other countries; files on the commercial relations with other nations; Papers of the International Supervisory Commission in Cambodia; UN policy in the region; French views on the region; reports on new developments; border incidents; Papers on the London talks; reports on the status of foreign troops in the area; and notes on Anglo-US discussions. Here are a few extracts from some of the documents: Annual Review of Events in Cambodia for
1958 by Mr Garnet, British Embassy, Phnom Penh, The Annual Report for Cambodia for 1961,
(see FO 371/166664) prepared by Mr Murray at the British Embassy,
Phnom Penh, and despatched to the Foreign Office on 5 January 1962,
provides the following conclusion in the section headed "Summary": Further illumination comes in Murray's report: Friction continued the following year. The
following extract from the Annual Report for Cambodia, 1962, (see
FO 371/170057) prepared by Mr Murray at the British Embassy, Phnom
Penh, and despatched to the Foreign Office on 15 January 1963, provides
an example of typical "tit for tat" actions: This final extract comes from a Confidential
Telegram from the Foreign Office to Washington DC, dated 1 February
1963, (see FO 371/170059): May 2000 Sterling Price: £1400 - US Dollar Price: $2250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America Part 3 of this microfilm project brings together all FO 371/ South East Asia Department files for Cambodia for the period 1959-1963. These include: Annual Review files; notes on the internal political situation in Cambodia; files on political relations with China, France, Thailand, Laos, the United States, the Soviet Union, India, Vietnam and other countries; files on the commercial relations with other nations; Papers of the International Supervisory Commission in Cambodia; UN policy in the region; French views on the region; reports on new developments; border incidents; Papers on the London talks; reports on the status of foreign troops in the area; and notes on Anglo-US discussions. Here are a few extracts from some of the documents: Annual Review of Events in Cambodia for
1958 by Mr Garnet, British Embassy, Phnom Penh, The Annual Report for Cambodia for 1961,
(see FO 371/166664) prepared by Mr Murray at the British Embassy,
Phnom Penh, and despatched to the Foreign Office on 5 January 1962,
provides the following conclusion in the section headed "Summary": Further illumination comes in Murray's report: Friction continued the following year. The
following extract from the Annual Report for Cambodia, 1962, (see
FO 371/170057) prepared by Mr Murray at the British Embassy, Phnom
Penh, and despatched to the Foreign Office on 15 January 1963, provides
an example of typical "tit for tat" actions: This final extract comes from a Confidential
Telegram from the Foreign Office to Washington DC, dated 1 February
1963, (see FO 371/170059): Sterling Price: £1950 - US Dollar Price: $3125 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America The Berlin Crisis, culminating in the massive Allied Airlift, June 1948-May 1949, was one of the first major episodes of the Cold War and helped to shape the nature and outline of modern Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Disagreements over Germany led to the Russian closure of the road routes to Berlin. The massive "Berlin airlift" became the city's only supply route. In 1948 the first American B29 Superfortress squadrons arrived in Britain in East Anglia - the vanguard of a force which was to steadily expand as the Cold War intensified. The Crisis followed swiftly in the aftermath of the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, February 1948, and the signature of the Brussels Treaty, March 1948. In this microfilm project we offer comprehensive coverage of Foreign Office files from FO 371 for 1947-1950 on the following:-Situation in Berlin; the Soviet blockade of access to Berlin; Western counter measures and retaliation via trade channels; the massive Airlift; Berlin currency and trade; the Berlin railway strike; the administration of Western Berlin; Minutes of Meetings of Commandants, Berlin, 1947-1950; Weekly Intelligence Reports from Berlin, 1947-1950; Visits carried out by the British Military Governor, Berlin; Allied Control Council documents on Berlin; UN Security Council debates on Berlin; Operation "Plainfare" and the use of civilian aircraft for the Berlin airlift; Soviet Breaches of the Four-Power Agreement on Germany; Berlin weekly political summaries and the Tripartite agreement on the Control of the Western Sectors of Berlin. We also provide some files on discussions on the Future political structure of Germany where these have a direct bearing on events in Berlin. As well as the strong body of Foreign Office files, which are full of high level diplomatic correspondence, telegrams, records of meetings, briefing papers and Foreign Office analyses of events, we include related AIR, CAB, FO, DEFE, Treasury and PREM files providing material on the Cabinet Committee on Germany and records of the Control Commission for Germany, the RAF Ferry and Transport Command, the British Air Forces of Occupation (BAFO) and Ministry of Defence Papers. These papers allow scholars to see the day by day and week by week workings of Operation "Plainfare", collaboration at various levels between Britain and America, the sheer volume of supplies airlifted and the manpower and expenditure involved. For instance: "This invaluable microfilm collection
from the archives of the Public Record Office at Kew provides an
account of day to day proceedings during the crucial months of the
early Cold War which will be of great use to students of the Crisis" In June 1948, the closing off of the Soviet sector from the rest of Germany produced the first major crisis of the Cold War period. Berlin began to run out of food and fuel. To avoid surrendering the city to Soviet forces, General Clay, commanding the American forces, ordered substantial quantities of supplies to be flown in from Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt to the American Base in Berlin. General LeMay, Air Force Commander in Europe, agreed the use of other European bases with France and Belgium. On 26 June 1948, USAF C-47s delivered the first 80 tons of food supplies into Berlin after the Soviet authorities claiming "Technical difficulties" halted all traffic by land and by water into or out of the western controlled sectors of Berlin. For the next 11 months the Allies sustained the city's 2.5 million population by one of the greatest logistical feats in aviation history. Tempelhof airbase was used in the US sector, Gatow in the British zone, whilst in the French sector, Tegel airbase was built in only 60 days using volunteer labour. The first USAF C-47 aircraft which carried supplies into Berlin were soon supplemented by C-54s, US Navy and Royal Air Force cargo aircraft. Somewhere close to 4,500 tons of food, coal and other supplies were required daily. The British side of the airlift was codenamed Operation "Plainfare". The American operation was known as Operation "Vittles". On 15 October 1948 the Allies established a unified command, the Combined Airlift Task Force, headed by Major General William H Tunner of the USAF. America sent three Strategic Air Command bomb groups with B-29s to Europe to emphasize Allied determination to resist Soviet pressure. At midnight on 12 May 1949 the Soviet Union re-opened land and water routes into Berlin. However, the Airlift continued until 30 September 1949 so as to build up a safe level of supplies. This microfilm project allows scholars access to a wide range of public records and will greatly facilitate study of all aspects of the crisis. "These files are a rich seam full
of gems - primary data from inside the Foreign Office presenting
an unfolding picture on the first chilling crisis of the cold war." These British records provide a wealth of detail on decisions at Cabinet Committee level; military and civilian planning groups; high level discussions between the Allies; Foreign Office deliberations, thinking and assessments, and the crucial task of co-ordination throughout the entire operation. Sterling Price: £2350 - US Dollar Price: $3800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Foreign Office
Files: United States of America Concentrating on Public Record Office Class FO 371 and all related CAB, FO & PREM files, we bring together all the complete files from the Public Record Office providing the British perspective on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. To enable scholars to examine the build
up, the crisis itself, and the aftermath, we include documents for
the period 1959-1963, in particular: Scholars can use these files for a fresh appraisal of US foreign policy in the Cold War era, US-Cuban relations, the role of the CIA, Soviet desires to redress a perceived arms inferiority, the nature and threat of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, as well as for an analysis of President Kennedy's handling of the entire episode. Why was the Bay of Pigs incident such a
fiasco ? Sterling Price: £2350 - US Dollar Price: $3800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Gloucester Port
Books Database, 1575-1765 This CD-ROM makes available for the first time the wealth of data in all the surviving coastal Port Books for Gloucester (PRO Class E190) from the first in 1575 to the last in 1765. Containing some 37,760 entries, a total of over 160 Books survive. Each entry provides information about a voyage, including the date, the name of the boat and its master and merchant, the boat's home port and its ports of departure and destination, and the quantity and nature of the goods and commodities carried. Port Books were instituted in 1565 to improve the collection of Customs duties and to assist in the general supervision of trade. In the past the sheer volume of data has
made it prohibitively time-consuming to extract information manually
and has discouraged the use of Port Books. However, by pioneering
the use of relational databases, The database includes records of voyages
to and from Gloucester and its lesser creeks. For both historical
and geographical reasons the records cover an area of great importance
to researchers. Gloucester is situated where the Severn, the longest
river navigation in England, (see Map middle right) meets the sea.
In contrast to other coastal ports, it was not primarily a place
where boats began and ended their voyages. Downriver traffic passed
through Gloucester bound for Bristol, the west country and south
Wales. Boats set out from such places as Tewkesbury, Worcester,
Bewdley, Broseley, Shrewsbury, and even Welshpool, which served
as ports for the west Midlands, the Welsh border counties, and the
Mersey valley. The river flowing through Gloucester therefore carried
much of the trade of rising industrial regions like the Severn Gorge,
the Black Country, the Potteries, and south Lancashire, and the
produce of agricultural regions as diverse as the All these locations are vital to the study
of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and to
our understanding of the growth of trade, commerce and population
in the two centuries after 1575. The following were responsible for the construction of the Gloucester Port Books Database during its various stages at the University of Wolverhampton: Academic Staff: Computer Support: The source material has been subdivided
into eight chronologically defined Blocks of Data to facilitate
the searching or manipulation of large amounts of data. The eight
different date options are: Researchers can also choose to search on "all records" for the entire 190 year period as well. "The Exchequer Port Books are a unique
and invaluable source for studying the coastal trade of England
and Wales from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries.
They record in detail the movements of boats which passed on coastal
voyages between domestic ports and havens, naming the people and
boats involved in the trade and describing the cargoes carried.
Nationally, well over 3 million individual voyages were recorded
containing details of different commodities, vessels and merchants
for over 120 Customs ports and creeks. This is an excellent teaching tool; with no additional charge for networking. It is a vast relational database covering the commercial and economic heartlands of England and Wales, 1575-1765. The exercises in the Tutorial section open up possibilities for undergraduate courses on the Economy and Trade of Pre-Industrial Britain using this CD-ROM in conjunction with the wide range of background literature now available on this subject. (Please see details below, including the section on the Bibliography). A user-friendly Windows environment makes this CD-ROM ideal for the classroom. Best use of the data as a teaching tool can be made by using just one block of data or just one year's records. Simple calculative functions such as counting, summing, averaging and identifying maximums and minimums are available. More senior researchers may also wish to start with just one block of data in the first instance! History - backtrack; mark record & other useful Windows environment features have been incorporated along with Soundex technology for individual surnames. The Detailed Guide and Tutorial (116 pages) provides extensive details on all Core Files and Local Variant Files with step by step instructions for users and 14 worked exercises as examples in the Tutorial section. What search questions can be asked with
this CD-ROM ? This source can be used in conjunction with other primary source material such as Probate Records, Acts of Parliament, State Papers, Diaries, Letters and Early English Newspapers. Users are free to download the entire dataset or blocks of data to use with other historical evidence. The project has advanced a national standard
for computerising coastal port books. There are two core files:
- The database reveals new insights into early industries, agricultural change, economic and harvest fluctuations, urban development, the growth of consumer demand, the navigation of rivers and the coast, and it contains data on several thousand merchants and masters involved in the trade, dozens of different ports and their hinterlands, and hundreds of boats. Glossary: Bibliography: The above list are but examples and give some idea of the interest in this material. A full Bibliograhy appears on the CD-ROM and in the paperback Guide and Tutorial. It is to be hoped that this CD-ROM will give rise to even greater scholarly activity. Some fruitful areas which might be explored are the changing viability of river transport; the penetration of luxury imports from Bristol into the Severn hinterland; the development of industrial production; an examination of important commodities such as IRON, COPPER, WINE & SPIRITS, SALT, GROCERIES and CLOTH; the impact of climatic fluctuation, war and embargo; the importance of river towns in terms of the number of boats operated, the range of cargoes carried, and the leading individuals in each town who were either boat operators or merchants; one might even try to track the activity of individual boats. This project will have much to offer all those with an interest in Internal trade and industrial expansion, Agrarian change, Urban studies, Social history, local and regional history, Consumerism and the world of goods. "The Port Book records can be manipulated
and analysed to answer a wide range of questions concerned with
pre-industrial trade and economic and social development. This CD-ROM
provides a unique computerised series of trade records which will
provide a basis for future research for many decades to come. No
comparable publication currently exists or is known to be in production." "Knowledgable scholars of coastal trade
will eagerly welcome the publication of this CD-ROM. It will also
prove to be of great use to a much wider audience. There is considerable
potential for independent research and student activity based around
this important source as the Port Book project has already published
more traditional supplementary materials, which are also supported
by an extensive secondary literature." System Requirements & Specifications The publication comprises one CD-ROM presented in a jewel case together with the paperback Guide and Tutorial (printed on acid-free paper). Two additional copies of the Guide and Tutorial are provided to all purchasers free of charge. Minimum system requirements: IBM compatible
PC with at least a 386 processor, a 486 or better is recommended;
4MB RAM, 8MB RAM preferred; MS Windows 3.1 or Windows 95; MS DOS
CD-ROM extensions 2.0; 15MB available temporary hard disk space
will be required for complex search queries. Exporting Data: Users may freely download data; however anyone exporting the entire database rather than one of the eight Blocks of Data should take care as the entire relational database is not small !! Networking: Purchasers may freely network the disc across a single site or complex - we are flexible, please ask if in doubt. Software Design: Wise & Loveys Ltd. Sterling Price: £975 - US Dollar Price: $1650 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The Guardian
Index, 1842-1928 The Guardian
Index, 1842-1928 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Libraries can now acquire a complete run of the previously unpublished index to The Guardian running from 1842 to 1985 (the printed index started in 1986). The Guardian Index unlocks the riches of this leading international newspaper by providing a direct route to the millions of articles written in this period. It will be particularly helpful for scholars to have access to the countless review articles featured in the newspaper. As well as book reviews (always a strong feature of the newspaper), there are reviews of ballet, cinema, drama, music, opera, radio and television. Given the paper's radical/liberal stance the index also provides access to those issues which The Guardian covered in greater detail than any other national newspaper. These range from the early struggles for women's suffrage, through labour disputes, to the problems of the immigrant coloured population in the post-World War II period. The Guardian also benefits from always having an international outlook. The rise of fascism and the plight of the Jews in the 1930's and 1940's is covered in great detail and Alistair Cooke's regular columns on American affairs, as well as his special reports on the Korean War, repay reading. There is much on decolonisation, apartheid, and protests against the War in Vietnam. Affairs in the Soviet Union and in the Far East are also extremely well documented. This Index, compiled by The Guardian for use by its' own journalists, will enable library users to gain rapid access to the articles which are of most interest to them. The Index is made available in three sections, covering 1842-1928; 1929-1972; and 1973-1985 respectively. Each of these sections is divided into parts to enable libraries with partial backfiles to acquire just those years of the Index which match their holdings. THE GUARDIAN INDEX, 1842-1928 The Manchester Guardian first appeared as a bi-weekly newspaper on 4 May 1821. It was founded by John Edward Taylor who edited the newspaper from 1821 to 1844. He was succeeded by Russell Scott Taylor (Editor, 1844-1848) and Jeremiah Garnett (Editor, 1848-1861). It was Garnett who made The Manchester Guardian a daily (in 1855) and who opened the paper's first London office. John Edward Taylor, jr, the son of the founder, took over as Editor from 1861 to 1871 and it was he who engaged the services of his cousin, C P Scott. During Scott's editorship from 1872 to 1929, The Manchester Guardian became one of the leading newspapers in the world with a reputation for fearlessness and factual accuracy. Scott's close friendships with leading figures such as Lloyd George, Chaim Weizmann, John Dillon and Mahatma Gandhi supplied the newspaper with leads that few others could match. The Index commenced in 1842 and took the form of large manuscript ledgers. Each ledger covers a single year and the indexing terms are alphabetically arranged. Under "A" in 1842, for instance, one will find entries concerning: Abduction; Anti-Corn Law; Athenaeum; Anti-Monopoly; America; Assizes; Accidents; Agriculture; Agitation; Anti-Bread Tax circular; Averages; Amateur Choral Society; Annual Licensing Sessions; Arson; and Ashburton, Lord. By 1928 (when the manuscripts ledgers end) the range of indexing terms has expanded dramatically and the index entries provide detailed abstracts. Due to the size and format of these large manuscript ledgers it was decided that 35mm microfilm was more suitable than microfiche, ensuring the legibility of all the handwritten entries. This first section will be of great value to anyone interested in the style and content of The Manchester Guardian during Scott's editorship. It offers an Index to the newspaper's coverage of the Civil War in America, Irish Home Rule, the First World War and the Women's Suffrage movement. Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The Guardian
Index, 1973-1985 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Libraries can now acquire a complete run of the previously unpublished index to The Guardian running from 1842 to 1985 (the printed index started in 1986). The Guardian Index unlocks the riches of this leading international newspaper by providing a direct route to the millions of articles written in this period. It will be particularly helpful for scholars to have access to the countless review articles featured in the newspaper. As well as book reviews (always a strong feature of the newspaper), there are reviews of ballet, cinema, drama, music, opera, radio and television. Given the paper's radical/liberal stance the index also provides access to those issues which The Guardian covered in greater detail than any other national newspaper. These range from the early struggles for women's suffrage, through labour disputes, to the problems of the immigrant coloured population in the post-World War II period. The Guardian also benefits from always having an international outlook. The rise of fascism and the plight of the Jews in the 1930's and 1940's is covered in great detail and Alistair Cooke's regular columns on American affairs, as well as his special reports on the Korean War, repay reading. There is much on decolonisation, apartheid, and protests against the War in Vietnam. Affairs in the Soviet Union and in the Far East are also extremely well documented. This Index, compiled by The Guardian for use by its' own journalists, will enable library users to gain rapid access to the articles which are of most interest to them. The Index is made available in three sections, covering 1842-1928; 1929-1972; and 1973-1985 respectively. Each of these sections is divided into parts to enable libraries with partial backfiles to acquire just those years of the Index which match their holdings. THE GUARDIAN INDEX, 1973-1985 Taking over as Editor in 1975, Peter Preston became only the 10th Editor in the newspaper's history. This final section of the Index covers the zenith of union power in Britain, the counterblast of Thatcherism, the Watergate scandal and the end of the War in Vietnam, the deaths of Franco and Mao and the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The Guardian newspaper has a permanent and respected place amongst the leading international newspapers of record. The Guardian Index will open up this resource to scholars providing a radical counterpoint to the establishment news reporting of The Times. Special Features of the Index Leaders Every Leader article written for The Guardian from 1842 to 1985 is listed in the Index, broken into sub-headings. This provides users with a quick overview of the key topics of any given period. Cartoons, Maps and Illustrations Every Cartoon is identified, specifying the cartoonist (eg all those by "Low") and giving the caption. All maps, photographs and diagrams are identified, opening up a huge library of news pictures. Featured Writers/Signed Articles Among the many leading journalists, intellectuals and politicians who have contributed to The Guardian are: Brian Aldiss, John Arlott, W T Arnold, Norman Bentwich, Michael Billington, Asa Briggs, Karl Capek, Neville Cardus, Richard Crossman, C P Crozier, Alistair Cooke, Ivo Duchacek, Michael Frayn, Max Freedman, Victor Gollancz, Jo Grimond, L T Hobhouse, Simon Hoggart, Bernard Ingham, Lena Jeger, Nicholas Kaldor, Arthur Koestler, Bernard Levin, David Marquand, Henry Massingham, Henry Woodd Nevinson, A Ponsonby, Arthur Ransome, Diana Rowntree, Norman Shrapnel, Harold Spender, David Steel, R H Tawney, A J P Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Jill Tweedie, Alex Werth, Tanya Zinkin and Victor Zorza. Reviews The Index includes numerous special sections. Book Reviews are indexed (Anon, General and then by author) with between 1,000 and 2,000 entries per year. There are also sections for Art Exhibitions, Ballet, Cinema, Concerts, Drama, Opera and Television (including memorable early TV reviews by Bernard Levin). Other special topics indexed include Company Reports and Meetings, Letters to the Editor, Political Speeches, Wills and Obituaries, Sports, Women's Pages and Feature Articles. There is detailed coverage of all political and social issues by country. The originals of this unique resource are held at Manchester Central Library (the manuscript ledger index, 1842-1928) and the John Rylands University Library of Manchester (the card index, 1929-1985). Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History of
Science and Technology Sir Hans Sloane, 1st baronet, 1660-1753, succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as the President of the Royal Society and held that post for fifteen years from 1727 to 1741. He had previously served as Secretary from 1693 to 1712 and was responsible for reviving the Philosophical Transactions. An eminent Physician (his patients included Queen Anne and King George II, and he was Physician to Christ's Hospital from 1694 to 1730), he was also President of the Royal College of Physicians from 1719 to 1735. He studied in Paris and Montpellier and his flourishing connections with European scientists resulted in his election as a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, St Petersburg and Madrid. He founded the Botanical Garden in Chelsea in 1721 and his early travels to the West Indies provided the basis for his Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbados, Nieves, St Christopher's and Jamaica (London, 1707 and 1725) which drew admiration from contemporaries such as John Ray. The Sloane manuscripts reflect all of these interest and more, because Sloane is also remembered as the greatest collector in an age of great collectors. He retained many of his papers relating to the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians and those concerning the foundation of hospitals and asylums for the insane. He acquired groups of papers of contemporary scientists such as Boyle and Hooke. He organised his own correspondence into 34 large volumes. He assiduously collected earlier material as well, with particular attention to manuscript accounts of travels and voyages of discovery, and works on Alchemy, Art, Astrology, Astronomy, Bibliography, Botany, Chemistry, Geography, Grammar, History, Law, Magic, Mathematics, Medicine, Natural History, Numismatics, Poetry, Theology and Zoology. These manuscripts date from the early medieval period and include such pearls as a contemporary fourteenth century manuscript copy of John Arderne's Liber Medicinarum, extensive manuscripts concerning the teaching of Bombast von Hohenheim (called Paracelsus), the original holograph notes of William Harvey's lectures on anatomy, Englebert Kaempfer's own journals and notes concerning his travels in Japan, Persia and the Far East in the Seventeenth Century, and manuscripts of leading figures from Wolsey to Walpole. When he died on 11 January 1753, Sloane's Museum and Library were offered to the nation for £20,000, in accordance with his will, as he had hoped that they would provide the foundation of a great National Library. His wishes were fulfilled and the collections were bought from the proceeds of a public lottery under the Act of Parliament 26 Geo. II, cap. 22, from which the British Museum and the British Library date their inception. Together with the Cotton and Harleian manuscripts which were purchased through the same Act, the Sloane manuscripts have retained the name of their original collector, with a separate numeration, 1-4100. They also form the basis of the British Library's great, ongoing Additional Manuscripts series which commences numeration with Add. Ms. 4101. Further Sloane materials appear as Add. Mss. 5018-5027 and 5214-5308. The scope of the Sloane manuscripts is so vast that it would not be helpful or sustainable to publish them all in a single numerical sequence. What we have chosen to do instead is to publish the manuscripts in thematic groupings so that every published part of our project has a value and a unity in itself. Some of the major themes that we are proposing to cover are: Science and Society, 1660-1773 Selections are made on the basis of a careful examination of the existing finding aids, consultation with scholars and an examination of individual manuscripts at the British Library. Edward J L Scott's Index to the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1904; reprinted 1971) is the only published guide describing the riches of the collection and this has proved invaluable. However, extensive use has also been made of the numerically organised descriptive listing of the Sloane collection which can be consulted in its original manuscript form (in nineteen volumes, it has never been published) in the British Library's Department of Manuscripts. There is inevitably some overlap between the themes covered by individual manuscripts (one only has to think of the range of entries in a typical renaissance commonplace book) and where a volume is deemed to be absolutely critical to more than one theme it will be included more than once. However, our general policy is not to duplicate items but to provide cross-references in our listings where appropriate. Each part is accompanied by a detailed descriptive guide based on existing published and unpublished finding aids and on our own research. The aim of these guides is to provide a quick and easy access to the microfilm edition rather than to be a definitive scholarly catalogue. However, it is hoped that they will serve to draw attention to the research potential of the archive and that they will provide a level of detail sufficient to satisfy the needs of most researchers. The details provided by each guide will inevitably vary to suit the requirements of the materials included in the part (correspondence volumes need to be described differently from lengthy manuscript texts) but it is planned that a composite index of authors and correspondents and a concordance of volumes included (with references to the microfilm reels on which they may be found) will be included as the series progresses. The first part of this series, based on the them Science and Society, 1660-1773 makes available the complete sequence of Sloane's own prodigious correspondence (Sloane Mss. 4036-4069) which features prolonged exchanges of detailed letters between Sloane and many of the leading British and European scholars of his time. It includes letters to and from: Patrick Adair, John Amman, Jean Anisson, John Aubrey, John Bagford, Erik Benzelius, Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon (Librarian to Louis XV) (76 letters), Patrick Blair (67 letters), Jacob Bobart, Herman Boerhaave, Charles du Bois, Gideon Bonnivert, Col. William Byrd (of Virginia), the Earl of Chesterfield, Cordonnier de Saint Hyacinthe, James Cuninghame (Physician in China), Sir Thomas Dereham, Pierre Desmaizeaux, John Evelyn, John Flamsteed, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Benjamin Franklin, Etienne Geoffroy, Edmund Gibson, Edmond Halley, Thomas Hearne, Anna Hermann, Thomas Isted, Philippus Josephus de Jarriges, Antoine de Jussieu, Bernard de Jussieu, James Keill, Jacobus Theodorus Klein, Jean Rodolfe Lavater, Gottfried Leibnitz, Carl Linnaeus, John Locke, John Madden, Sauveur Morand, William Musgrave, Sir Isaac Newton, Alexander Orme, Samuel Pepys, James Petivar, Alexander Pope (a good letter concerning his grotto), Charles Preston, John Ray (over 100 letters), Richard Richardson, Schöpflin, Albertus Seba, William Sherard, Mary Somerset (and her husband, the Duke of Beaufort), Sir Robert Southwell (Secretary of State for Ireland), Johann Steigerthal, Thomas Tanner, Ralph Thoresby, John Thorpe, Robert Uvedale, Antonio Vallisneri, Harman Verelst, Richard Waller, Horace Walpole, Robert Walpole, Humfrey Wanley, John Welbe (a proposal for "A Voyage Round the Globe for the Discovery of Terra Australis Incognita), John Woodward, John Thomas de Woolhouse, James Yonge, Zanoni, Philip Henry Zollman and Theodor Zwinger. The volume and detail of this correspondence bring to life the concerns of late-seventeenth and eighteenth century scientific society, especially themes such as: the interconnected nature of world science; the role of the nobility and patronage in science; the desire to map out the world and discover new lands; the movement towards clarifying and codifying all animals and plants; the role of the virtuoso and of scientific societies; the use of microscopes and pioneer work in preventative medicine; the foundation of scientific method based on Newtonian analysis and synthesis. The second theme - Voyages of Discovery, 1450-1750 - will commence publication in 1999 and will make a total of three parts. This includes his substantial collection of manuscript accounts of voyages and travels featuring an account of the travels of Marco Polo, two accounts of Columbus's early voyages, Englebert Kaempfer's original, seventeenth century journals concerning his travels in Persia, Japan and the Far East, and many contemporary and holograph records of Richard Bell, Adriano de las Cartes, William Cowley, John Cox, the Earl of Cumberland, Louis Desmay, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Francis Drake, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Martin Frobisher, William Hack, John Hawkins, Lord Howard, John Jourdain, Bartolome de Lascasas, Henry Maynwaringe, William Munson, Nathaniel Peckett, William Penn, Walter Raleigh, Pedro Baretto de Rosende, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, Richard Simson, Luis Paez de Torres, and Nicolai Warkottschii. These document voyages and travels to Africa, the Americas, China, India, Japan, the East and West indies and Russia, and attempts to circumnavigate the world, discover the North-West and North-East passages, and find the Great Southern Land. There are also many fine maps and charts (such as Charles II's presentation copy of Hack's South Sea Waggoner), and works on geography, navigation, the navy and naval warfare (including an account of the burning of Cadiz) and on trade (with details of grants given to African, American and Indian trading companies). Sterling Price: £1350 - US Dollar Price: $2350 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History of
Science and Technology Sir Hans Sloane's interest in voyages of discovery and exploration can be traced to his own early experiences. Born in Dublin, he came to London in 1679, aged 19, and spent four years studying medicine and botany. He came under the influence of Robert Boyle and John Ray who encouraged him to travel abroad. He went to Paris in 1683 and studied under Tournefort and Sanlyon at the Jardin Royal des Plantes and the Hopital de la Charite, gaining his MD from the University of Orange. Then he declined to embark on a Grand Tour to Italy and instead spent a year at Montpellier under the tutelage of Pierre Chirac and Pierre Magnol. He returned to England in 1684, but the travelling did not stop, for he was appointed personal physician to Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albermarle, newly appointed governor of Jamaica. John Ray was enthusiastic about this opportunity for Sloane to "search out and examine thoroughly the natural varieties of that island" notwithstanding "the danger and hazard of so long a voyage." Sloane and the Duke sailed for Jamaica in October 1687 and, after brief respites in Madeira and Canaries, reached Barbados in late November. They then proceeded to Jamaica, via Nevis, Santa Cruz, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Sloane took detailed notes all the while and immersed himself in the natural history of the region as well as attending to his duties as a physician. The latter brought him into contact with a number of travellers and reformed pirates who had settled on the island. Sloane's visit was curtailed by the death of the Duke in October 1688, and Sloane sailed for home in March 1689, not knowing that there was a new King (William of Orange) on the throne. Sloane then settled into a life as an eminent society physician and a great figure in the scientific societies of his time. He gained the respect of his peers by gradually collating, analysing and publishing the results of his earlier explorations in Jamaica. This culminated with his Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbados, Nieves, St Christopher's and Jamaica (London, 1707 and 1725). As a Collector, Sloane also continued to amass a vast library of original manuscripts relating to travel, voyages of discovery and the sea. These range from William Dampier's own account of his voyage to the South Seas and the fringes of Australia, 1682-1691 (Sloane 3236), and the Charter granted to the Company of Royal Adventurers relating to trade in Africa, (Sloane 205), to letters of Sir Walter Raleigh regarding the Guiana expedition of 1617-1618 (Sloane 3520). Highlights include: Sloane 42 John Chilton's voyage in the South
Seas and to New Spain, 1568-86 This is just a sampling of the 191 manuscripts
covered in their entirety by Parts 2 and 3 of this series. For North America there is good material concerning Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. There are works on navigation and geography, original rutters and waggoners (such as Charles II's presentation copy of Hack's South Sea Waggoner) describing approved sea routes, accounts of victualling and provisions, notes on the state of the English fleet, records of naval escapades (including an account of the burning of Cadiz), and descriptions of piracy. There are original records of the Royal African Company, the Merchant Adventurers, the Scotch Merchants Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the East India Company. There are detailed accounts of the flora, fauna and natural produce of various territories including Virginia, Guiana, the West Indies, Ethiopia, the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, China and Japan. There is an account of the travels of Marco Polo, two accounts of Columbus's early voyages and many contemporary and holograph records of Richard Bell, Adriano de las Cartes, John Chilton, Thomas Clement, William Cowley, John Cox, the Earl of Cumberland, William Dampier, Louis Desmay, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Francis Drake, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Martin Frobisher, William Hack, John Hawkins, Lord Howard, David Ingram, William Jackson, John Jourdain, Bartolome de Las Casas, Henry Maynwaringe, William Munson, Nathaniel Peckett, William Penn, Pierre Radisson, Walter Raleigh, Pedro Baretto de Rosende, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, Richard Simson, Luis Paez de Torres, and Nicolai Warkottschii. Englebert Kaempfer's original, seventeenth century journals concerning his travels in Persia, Japan and the Far East will be the focus of a separate project. November 1999 Sterling Price: £1530 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History
of Science and Technology Sir Hans Sloane's interest in voyages of discovery and exploration can be traced to his own early experiences. Born in Dublin, he came to London in 1679, aged 19, and spent four years studying medicine and botany. He came under the influence of Robert Boyle and John Ray who encouraged him to travel abroad. He went to Paris in 1683 and studied under Tournefort and Sanlyon at the Jardin Royal des Plantes and the Hopital de la Charite, gaining his MD from the University of Orange. Then he declined to embark on a Grand Tour to Italy and instead spent a year at Montpellier under the tutelage of Pierre Chirac and Pierre Magnol. He returned to England in 1684, but the travelling did not stop, for he was appointed personal physician to Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albermarle, newly appointed governor of Jamaica. John Ray was enthusiastic about this opportunity for Sloane to "search out and examine thoroughly the natural varieties of that island" notwithstanding "the danger and hazard of so long a voyage." Sloane and the Duke sailed for Jamaica in October 1687 and, after brief respites in Madeira and Canaries, reached Barbados in late November. They then proceeded to Jamaica, via Nevis, Santa Cruz, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Sloane took detailed notes all the while and immersed himself in the natural history of the region as well as attending to his duties as a physician. The latter brought him into contact with a number of travellers and reformed pirates who had settled on the island. Sloane's visit was curtailed by the death of the Duke in October 1688, and Sloane sailed for home in March 1689, not knowing that there was a new King (William of Orange) on the throne. Sloane then settled into a life as an eminent society physician and a great figure in the scientific societies of his time. He gained the respect of his peers by gradually collating, analysing and publishing the results of his earlier explorations in Jamaica. This culminated with his Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Barbados, Nieves, St Christopher's and Jamaica (London, 1707 and 1725). As a Collector, Sloane also continued to amass a vast library of original manuscripts relating to travel, voyages of discovery and the sea. These range from William Dampier's own account of his voyage to the South Seas and the fringes of Australia, 1682-1691 (Sloane 3236), and the Charter granted to the Company of Royal Adventurers relating to trade in Africa, (Sloane 205), to letters of Sir Walter Raleigh regarding the Guiana expedition of 1617-1618 (Sloane 3520). Highlights include: Sloane 42 John Chilton's voyage in the South
Seas and to New Spain, 1568-86 This is just a sampling of the 191 manuscripts
covered in their entirety by Parts 2 and 3 of this series. For North America there is good material concerning Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Florida. There are works on navigation and geography, original rutters and waggoners (such as Charles II's presentation copy of Hack's South Sea Waggoner) describing approved sea routes, accounts of victualling and provisions, notes on the state of the English fleet, records of naval escapades (including an account of the burning of Cadiz), and descriptions of piracy. There are original records of the Royal African Company, the Merchant Adventurers, the Scotch Merchants Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the East India Company. There are detailed accounts of the flora, fauna and natural produce of various territories including Virginia, Guiana, the West Indies, Ethiopia, the Cape of Good Hope, the East Indies, China and Japan. There is an account of the travels of Marco Polo, two accounts of Columbus's early voyages and many contemporary and holograph records of Richard Bell, Adriano de las Cartes, John Chilton, Thomas Clement, William Cowley, John Cox, the Earl of Cumberland, William Dampier, Louis Desmay, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Francis Drake, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Martin Frobisher, William Hack, John Hawkins, Lord Howard, David Ingram, William Jackson, John Jourdain, Bartolome de Las Casas, Henry Maynwaringe, William Munson, Nathaniel Peckett, William Penn, Pierre Radisson, Walter Raleigh, Pedro Baretto de Rosende, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, Richard Simson, Luis Paez de Torres, and Nicolai Warkottschii. Englebert Kaempfer's original, seventeenth century journals concerning his travels in Persia, Japan and the Far East will be the focus of a separate project. December 1999 Sterling Price: £1530 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History of
Science and Technology Sir Joseph Banks was a dominant figure in
the growth of scientific inquiry, the upsurge of geographical exploration
and the application of the ideas of science to agriculture and industry
in the period 1766-1820. The first voyage was merely an appetiser for what was to come. It confirmed that Banks enjoyed ship board life and that there was an abundance of work to do for an aspiring naturalist on such a voyage. The second voyage, admittedly a hazardous undertaking, offered the chosen naturalist a place in history as the first European to systematically explore and record the ecosystems of Antarctica, Australasia and Polynesia. Organised by the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti, the Endeavour voyage further increased knowledge about the Pacific and Antarctic regions and was celebrated for the exploration of the two islands of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. Banks also achieved celebrity by amassing remarkable botanical, zoological and etymological specimens which, together with the fine artistic sketches and detailed charts, aroused great interest in the Pacific region and served as a pioneer example for future scientific expeditions. After the Endeavour voyage Banks could have continued a career as a naturalist/explorer, or could have retired to catalogue his collections and write up his account of the voyage. Instead - and this is why he is such an interesting figure to historians of science - he chose to employ his fame, knowledge, wealth and contacts to become a sponsor, catalyst and organiser. He sponsored numerous voyages around the world; he pioneered economic botany and the translocation of plants; he encouraged the settlement of Australia; he played a major role in improving British sheep stocks; he pioneered new agricultural methods and encouraged geological analysis; and he sought to derive practical benefits from science. As Johnson noted, Banks was eminently clubbable. He developed a circle of friendship that encompassed George III, Matthew Boulton, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Humboldt, Antoine Lavoisier, Thomas Raffles, Alessandro Volta, James Watt, Arthur Young and Carl Graf von Zeppelin. He maintained these friendships through wars and revolutions bringing accusations from all sides that he was a spy. He thought that science and learning were above such political considerations. Instead, he wished to derive maximum benefit from bringing together the ideas of botanists, chemists, economists, industrialists, inventors, mathematicians, natural historians and physicists. A list of his achievements is daunting: He was elected President of the Royal Society in 1778, further widening his circle of contacts. He remained in office until 1820 - assiduously attending meetings for 42 years and actively directing its operations and patronage. He was the unofficial Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (1773-1820) and sponsored the acquisition of specimens for the herbarium and gardens. He was also a central figure in founding The Linnean Society of London (1788), The African Association (1788), the Board of Agriculture (1793), The Royal Institution (1799) and the Royal Horticultural Society (1804). He proposed the settlement of Australia (in 1779 and 1783) and advised on the logistical support required for the first fleet which founded the colony in Sydney in 1788. He also played a key role in the introduction of sheep, wheat and viticulture to Australia and sponsored both the circumnavigation of Australia by Flinders and the exploration of the interior by Blaxland and others. He was an important innovator in agriculture, working with his neighbour Arthur Young, to test drainage schemes and methods of cultivation. He was also closely involved in the planning of undercover raids to steal merino sheep from Spain and thus to improve British livestock strains. He averted a wheat crisis and encouraged the use of stratigraphical geology as an aid to land management and mining. He was chief patron to William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus, and was a prime mover behind the Baseline survey - the foundation of modern cartography. He discovered and described many new plants and animals and encouraged the profitable translocation of foodplants (recommending the growth of tea and cotton in India and sponsoring the ill-fated breadfruit voyage of HMS Bounty). He gathered a great herbarium and library, had it catalogued, and opened it to scholars from around the world. He was a member of the Society of Dilletanti (from 1774) and Dr Johnson's Club (from 1778), which introduced him to Boswell, Burke, Fox, Garrick, Goldsmith, Malone, Reynolds and Adam Smith. He was also a member of the Lunar Society which brought him in contact with Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood and other entrepreneurs and inventors. He was an active Privy Councillor (1797-1820),
holding regular discussions with William Pitt and was one of the
only people allowed to speak with King George III during his madness. Parts 1-3 of this collection are drawn from the holdings of the British Library, London, and document all aspects of his life and interests. Part 1 covers the largest single collection of his correspondence, organised into 18 volumes (British Library Additional Mss 8094-8100; 8967-8968; 33977-33982; and 32439-32441). The correspondence touches upon affairs of state, technological advances, trade and industry, arts and letters, the management of his estates, voyages of discovery and the running of the institutions with which Banks was connected. Leading correspondents include: Henry Adington, Charles Babbage, Matthew Boulton, Pierre Broussonet, James Cook, Matthew Flinders, Benjamin Franklin, George III, Edward Gibbon, William Herschel, William Hooker, F A Humboldt, John Hunter, Edward Jenner, Samuel Johnson, Jean Lamarck, Antoine Lavoisier, Edmond Malone, William Marsden, Archibald Menzies, Mungo Park, Thomas Pennant, William Pitt, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Raffles, Pierre Joseph Redoute, John Rennie, William Roscoe, Lady Hester Stanhope, Carl Peter Thurnberg, Alessandro Volta, Horace Walpole, James Watt, William Wilberforce, John Wilkes, Philip Yorke - 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, Arthur Young and Carl Graf von Zeppelin. Three volumes are devoted to his correspondence with Robert Brown, botanist, who accompanied Flinders on the Investigator and became Banks' librarian on the death of Jacob Dryander. Brown was also President of the Linnean Society, 1849-1853. A further 43 manuscript volumes document voyages of discovery (British Library Additional Mss 7085, 8945-8947, 8951-8953, 8955, 8959, 9345, 11803, 15331, 15499-15500, 15507, 15513-15514, 15743, 15855, 17542-17552, 21593, 23920-23921, 27855-27890, 27955-27956 and 32439). In addition to covering voyages that Banks participated in or sponsored, we have taken the opportunity of including log-books and records of other important voyages of this period. Those covered include: Tasman's Journal of a voyage to the South Seas (1642-1644) in an original Dutch version and as translated for Banks; Anson's great round the world voyage in HMS Centurion (1740-1744); Wallis' voyage to the South seas on HMS Dolphin (1766-1768); Cook's first circumnavigation with Banks in HMS Endeavour (1768-1771); Cook's second voyage with HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure (1772-1775); Cook's third and final voyage with HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery (1776-1780); George Vancouver's survey voyage to the West Coast of America (1791-1794); and Matthew Flinder's coastal survey of Australia aboard HMS Investigator and Resistance (1798-1799). Sterling Price: £1490 - US Dollar Price: $2350 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History of
Science and Technology This second part of the Papers of Sir Joseph Banks from the British Library, London, makes available a further 30 manuscript volumes documenting voyages of discovery, 1760-1800, and the history of science. The volumes covered are British Library Additional Mss 32641, 34727-34747, 37327, 37528, 38530 and Egerton Mss 2177A-B, 2178-2180 and 2591. Once again, in addition to covering voyages that Banks participated in or sponsored, we have taken the opportunity of including log-books and records of other important voyages of this period. Those covered include: Cook's first circumnavigation with Banks in HMS Endeavour (1768-1771); Cook's second voyage with HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure (1772-1775); Cook's third and final voyage with HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery (1776-1780); and George Vancouver's survey voyage to the West Coast of America (1791-1794). Of more general interest are the papers of James West (1704?-1772), Secretary to the Treasury (1741-1762), MP for St Albans (1741-1768), Treasurer of the Royal Society (1736-1768) and President of the Royal Society (1768-1772). West was also a great collector and formerly owned the Burghley Papers and other manuscripts from the Lansdowne Collection, now at the British Library. Two of the volumes here clearly escaped inclusion in the sale and feature important papers by John Fox, Francis Bacon, Leibnitz, Burghley and others. The other papers illustrate the close connections between Science, Politics and Patronage in the period prior to Banks' presidency of the Royal Society. There is also correspondence of 1768 between West, Banks and Solander relating to the Endeavour voyage. Sterling Price: £1250 - US Dollar Price: $2100 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History
of Science and Technology This third part of the Papers of Sir Joseph Banks from the British Library, London, makes available a further 48 manuscript volumes documenting voyages of discovery, 1743-1820, and 4 volumes of Banks' correspondenceand papers relating to the Mint and coinage, c1700-1823. The volumes covered are British Library Additional Mss 8960-8962, 13880, 13976, 15508-15512, 15716, 17227, 17552, 17623, 17693, 18390, 21239, 22613, 30262, 30369, 33230, 33494, 35141, 3530035309, 37232, 38421-38425, 38681-38682, 39672, 40666, 42714, 45712, 46868, 47106-47109, 47768, 47769A and Egerton Ms 3009. Once again, in addition to covering voyages
that Banks participated in or sponsored, we have taken the opportunity
of including log-books and records of other important voyages of
this period. Those covered include: Gallego's voyage to the South
seas (1586); Cook's Newfoundland charts (1764-1767); Wallis' voyage
to the South seas on HMS Dolphin (1766-1768); Cook's first circumnavigation
with Banks in HMS Endeavour (1768-1771); Cook's second voyage with
HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure (1772-1775); Banks' second major
expedition on the Sir Lawrence to Fingal's cave, the Hebrides and
Iceland (1772); Cook's third and final voyage with HMS Resolution
and HMS Discovery (1776-1780); Woodcock's circumnavigation in the
King George (1785-1788); the voyage of William Bligh on HMS Bounty
(1787-1790); George Vancouver's survey voyage to the West Coast
of America (1791-1794); Macartney's embassy to China (1792-1794);
Colnett's South Sea voyage on the Rattler on a whaling protection
voyage (1793-1794); Mungo Park's exploration of the Niger (1795-1805); Sterling Price: £1250 - US Dollar Price: $2100 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History
of Science and Technology The first three parts of this series made available the British Library's rich holdings relating to Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820). These included not only the largest surviving collection of his correspondence, but also original narratives of the expeditions of Anson, Cook, Flinders, Franklin, Park, Vancouver and others. This fourth part offers complete coverage of Sir Joseph Banks' papers from the State Library of New South Wales, together with further materials concerning Voyages of Discovery, 1768-1820. Highlights of the collection are: The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks,
25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771. Other items include Banks' Journal of an excursion to Chatham, Rochester, Sheerness and Sheppey, Jan-Mar 1767; Banks' Journal of a tour in Holland, Feb-Mar 1773; Papers concerning the publication by Comte Louis de Lauraguais of Banks' abstract account of the Endeavour voyage, 1772; Correspondence between Banks and Bligh while the latter was commander of HM ships Calcutta, Director, Glutton, Irresistable and Warrior; Papers concerning the publication of the account of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, 1792; General correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1773-1819; Papers written by Banks; Records concerning his Lincolnshire Estates; and letters of Sarah Sophia Banks, 1773-4 & 1779, and Lady Dorothea Banks, 1817-1822. The papers are drawn from the collections of both the Mitchell and Dixson Libraries, held at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. The Mitchell Library is based on the personal collection of books, maps, and manuscripts of David Scott Mitchell, relating to Australia and the Pacific, and bequeathed to SLNSW in 1907. The Dixson Library is based on the smaller personal collection of Sir William Dixson, bequeathed to the people of New South Wales in 1959. Together they form the Australian Research Collections at the State Library of New South Wales, and total 9,000 linear metres of manuscripts, over a million pictures and photographs, hundreds of thousands of maps, and more than half a million printed items. All of the items reproduced here are unique manuscript materials held by State Library of New South Wales. They were identified through a thorough survey of the Australian Research Collections carried out by the Library in the early 1990's. This is the first time that they have been made available in a comprehensive microfilm publication. This material provides an important complement to the Banks papers covered in Parts 1-3 of this series. It sheds light on many of Banks' projects and activities and is especially strong for: The three voyages of Captain Cook and early Pacific exploration; Banks' botanical interests - gathering plant specimens from all over the world and pioneering the translocation of fruits and crops to different regions; and the settlement and colonial government of Australia As President of the Royal Society, 1778-1820,
patron of exploration, and agricultural and industrial pioneer,
Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) is a key figure in 18th and 19th century
science. Sterling Price: £1100 - US Dollar Price: $1775 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The History
of Science and Techonology "The idea of a digital computer is
an old one. ... Babbage had all the essential ideas...." Alan Turing's comment confirms the importance of Babbage to the History of Computing. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (aged 24) in 1816 - the same year in which Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written - Babbage showed that a machine could be created which could replicate certain areas of human thought. Babbage designed first the Difference Engine (an automatic mechanical calculating machine) and then the Analytical Engine (a pioneer digital computer). His designs included a central processing unit ("the Mill"), memory ("the Store"), variables, operators and a printer to output conclusions. The design was one thing, actually constructing the machines with the available technology proved to be extremely difficult. Notwithstanding substantial grants from the Royal Society and the British Government Babbage failed to create either. That glory was left to the Swedish printer, Georg Scheutz, who won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition for constructing the Difference Engine. A close friend and collaborator in much of his work was Augusta Ada Byron, later the Countess of Lovelace, who was the only child of Lord Byron. She was confident of the importance of the machine, stating that "We may most aptly say that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves." The metaphor was appropriate, for Babbage used a card reader inspired by the punched cards used on Jacquard loom. Augusta Ada Byron wrote the first computer programme for the engine (to calculate Bernoulli numbers) and the programming language ADA is named after her. Babbage knew that his ideas were ahead of his time, commenting in Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864): "The discovery of the Analytical Engine is so much in advance of my own country, and I fear even of the age, that it is very important for its success that the fact should not rest on my unsupported testimony." It is for his ideas that Babbage is revered today, laying down the foundations for the computer more than 100 years before the creation of the electronic version that we now take for granted. Babbage's interests and achievements were
not limited to the field of computing. Mathematics - his work on the calculus of
functions helped to found a new branch of analysis. He was Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to 1839, and founded
the Royal Statistical Society of London in 1834. Friends and correspondents included Sir George Airy, Antonio Alessandri (President of the Academy of Sciences, Bologna), André Marie Ampère, Vincenzio Antinori (Director of the Natural History Museum, Florence), Joseph Banks, Jean Baptiste Biot, George Boole, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Christian Bunsen, Augusta Ada Byron (later King), Julia Margaret Cameron, Count Cavour, Richard Cobden, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Angela Burdett Coutts, Charles Darwin, Augustus De Morgan, Charles Dickens, Maria Edgeworth, Michael Faraday, Laurent Feuillet (Librarian, Institut de France), Jean Fourier (Secretary l'Académie des Sciences), Sir John Franklin, W E Gladstone, Caroline Herschel, Sir John Herschel, Friedrich Humboldt, Joseph Ingersoll (US Minster in London), William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Sir Charles Lyell, Frederick Marryat, RN, Harriet Martineau, Luigi Menabrea, John Stuart Mill, James Nasmyth, Caroline Norton, Giovanni Plana, Lambert Quetelet (Secretary, Brussels Academy), George Rennie, P M Roget (Secretary, The Royal Society), John Ruskin, Lord John Russell, Nassau Senior, Sir James South, Jared Sparks (President of Harvard College), Harriet Beecher Stowe, Otto von Struver, Charles Sumner, W M Thackeray, Friedrich Trendelenburg, Georg Ursin, Henry Warburton (Secretary, Geological Society) and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. A complete index of correspondents is featured in our Guide. This project makes available all of the Babbage Papers from the British Library. There are twenty volumes of correspondence (11,003ff in total) with leading scientists and mathematicians throughout the world, interspersed with drafts of his own letters. The correspondence with Augusta Ada Byron (later King) is particularly substantial and worthy of note. There are four further volumes of scientific papers covering: "Essays on the philosophy of Analysis"; papers on astronomy, including correspondence with the Herschels, miscellaneous notes on mechanical drawing, lighthouses and occulting lights and geology; and papers on cyphers and decyphering, mathematical recreations and investigations of the laws of the game of tic-tac-to. Babbage's correspondence makes it clear that he was not just a brilliant mind, endlessly producing new schemes and inventions, but he was also a catalyst - inspiring colleagues with suggestions and helping them to make connections. The collection is an important resource for studying the History of Computing, the History of Mathematics, 19th Century Scientific Institutions, Charles Babbage, the Herschels, Augusta Ada Byron and Women in Science. Sterling Price: £1700 - US Dollar Price: $2750 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page India in the
Age of Empire Many Victorians saw the creation of the great Indian Empire between 1800 and 1860 as Britain's supreme achievement, not just in Asia but across the world. Michael Pakenham Edgeworth - the son of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, author, inventor and educator; and step-brother of Maria Edgeworth, the novelist - was ideally placed as a witness to the creation of British rule in India. Serving as a member of the Indian civil service from 1831 to his death in 1881, he followed the expansion of British territorial control in India from the coastal regions in the South to the wars with Tipu Sultan and the conquest of the Punjab from the Sikhs in 1849. He was appointed Commissioner for the settlement of the Punjab in 1850. Fortunately for historians, Michael Pakenham Edgeworth kept a detailed diary of his time in India. It starts in 1828, prior to his journey to India, and over 8,000 pages detail his observations and experiences up to 1867. Edgeworth had a fine eye for detail and his own passions for the native Indian languages and for botany ensured that he travelled widely in the field, visiting local communities and sparsely populated regions, as well as working in the urban areas. Sketches of local topography, observations on language and customs, descriptions of flora and fauna, and comments on the sights and sounds of the region make this a fascinating source for those interested in the social, cultural and political history of India in the Age of Empire, as well as for the world history of the . This project includes Bodleian Library MS Eng misc g356 (his sketch book); MSS Eng misc d1302-3 & e1469-75 (the journals); MS Eng misc d1305 (copies & extracts from the journals); MSS Eng misc d1306-7 (notes and drawings for Pollen [London, 1877], his main botanical work); MS Eng misc e1476 (statistics); and MS Eng misc e1477 (Sir James Innes' account of the siege of Lucknow). The letters of Michael Pakenham Edgeworth and his wife are included in Women, Education and Literature: The Papers of Maria Edgeworth, 1768-1849 Part 1. Sterling Price: £850 - US Dollar Price: $1325 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Between 1760 and 1830 the economic and social character of England, Scotland and Wales was completely transformed by the Industrial Revolution. A society of farmers, merchants and market towns was replaced by a thriving urban and industrial economy on the path to a premier place in the modern industrial world. This project provides essential source material for business and economic historians. It also details the tremendous scientific and technological advances of the period. It promises to be the most significant publication for economic historians since the Goldsmith's Kress Collection as it will enable them to examine the foundation, organisation and growth of one of the industrial revolution's pre-eminent businesses, in contrast to Adam Smith's pin factory. What was the Industrial Revolution? Was it the watershed in economic history that it has so often been made out to be? How important was innovation and scientific advance in the process? How important was entrepreneurship? Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History seeks to provide the basic source materials with which scholars and students can examine these questions and challenge previous assumptions. This project begins with: Series One: The Boulton and Watt Archive and Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library. At the core of the project are the papers of Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) and James Watt (1736-1819), two of the most important figures of this period. James Watt is justly famous as a pioneer of steam power and his steam engine became known as "the work-horse of the Industrial Revolution". He was also involved in canal construction as a surveyor and his father was a builder, contractor, instrument-maker, ship owner and merchant. Before he moved to Birmingham his circle of friends and peers included Joseph Black (who described latent heat) and Adam Smith. Matthew Boulton was a capitalist entrepreneur whose fortune was largely based on the silver-stamping and piercing business of his father. He founded the Soho works in Birmingham in 1762 and became a leading manufacturer of fancy goods and a major figure in coining and minting. His lifelong interest in science (he was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and founded the influential Lunar Society in 1764) enabled him to see the potential of James Watt's steam power and he backed Watt's ideas with his finance. Given that steam power had such a wide range of applications (in agriculture, coal mining, cotton manufacture, distilleries, the iron industry, copper, tin and lead mines, shipping, snuff and tobacco manufacture, spinning, starch companies, steam railways and the woollen industry to name but a few) the Boulton and Watt archives provide a good opportunity to examine not only a particular case study of one of the period's most important companies, but also to gain an overview of the transformation of the overall economy. The papers are more than just business records. Part 1 offers the correspondence of Matthew Boulton with members of the Lunar Society and a host of other influential figures who were on the fringe of The Lunar Society. Part 2 covers Notebooks and Papers of James Watt and family from Muirhead I. Part 3 brings together Engineering Drawings of Watt Engines of the Sun and Planet Type for the period c1775-1802. Part 4 features further Matthew Boulton Correspondence and Papers (Albion Mill through to documentation on Steam Engines, boxes arranged alphabetically). Part 5 covers a further collection of Engineering Drawings for the period c1775-1800. Part 1 concentrates on the Correspondence of Matthew Boulton with members of the Lunar Society. The calibre of members was extremely high. Its founders were William Small of Virginia (one of Thomas Jefferson's most influential teachers, sent to see Boulton with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin), Erasmus Darwin (the poet and physician who anticipated his grandson's evolutionary ideas in his verse) and Matthew Boulton. The society took its name from the decision to hold monthly meetings on Monday evenings closest to the full moon so that members could ride home by the light of the moon. William Small, Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestley (pioneering chemist and nonconformist), James Watt (Boulton's partner for 25 years from 1775), Joshiah Wedgwood (founder of the great Wedgwood potteries), William Withering (who introduced digitalis as a treatment for heart disorders), Thomas Day, James Keir (a pioneer in the chemical and glass industries), Samuel Galton, Robert Augustus Johnson, Richard Lovell Edgeworth and John Whitehurst all figure prominently in the correspondence. Also strongly featured in the correspondence are some very influential men who were on the fringe of the Society. These include Benjamin Franklin (a corresponding member) and John Roebuck (who founded the first sulphuric acid factory with Samuel Garbett), Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Beddoes, John Fothergill (leading Midland industrialist and colleague of Boulton), James Watt Jnr and John Smeaton (engineer and industrialist). This was truly a talking shop where words and ideas were translated into actions, new inventions and industries. The scope of the society's activities embraced social, political, economic, scientific and technological problem-solving, so we can also witness discussions of the social impact of the Industrial Revolution and general views of the revolutionary climate of the late eighteenth century. This microform edition offers great research potential for the study of innovation and scientific advance. It features the thoughts and deliberations of some of the leading scientific minds of the late eighteenth century. This project provides fundamental documentary evidence for new research into the substance and impact of the Industrial Revolution. The Lunar Society was at the heart of scientific and technological problem solving from 1764 onwards. In the words of Roger E Schofield in The Lunar Society of Birmingham (Oxford 1963) the Lunar Society was "... a brilliant microcosm of that scattered community of provincial manufacturers and professional men who found England a rural society with an agricultural economy and left it urban and industrial". Letters include Dr William Small's assessment of Mr Richard Lovell Edgeworth, August 12, 1768 in a letter to James Watt:- "Mr [R L] Edgeworth is a gentleman of fortune, young and mechanical and indefatigable. He is not acquainted with Heatly [Joseph Hately] but had taken a resolution of moving land and water carriages by steam, and has made considerable progress for the short space of time he has employed himself in that study. He knows nothing of your peculiar improvements, but seems to be on a fair way of knowing whatever can be known on such subjects... Get your patent and come to Birmingham with as much time to spare there as you can." And Boulton's reply to Josiah Wedgwood's letter of enquiry about the requirements of a particular engine, dated November 11, 1792:- M Boulton [Soho, Birmingham] - J Wedgwood [Etruria] 3 pp. 4 to. Autograph draft, endorsed "My answer and letter to J Wedgwood Nov 11th, 1792 about Engine and repayment of his money". "I am not possessed of any calculations respecting ane Engine of 15 horses but I can speak accurately as to the cost of 16 horse and 32 horse power Engines. A 16 horse £696, a 32 horse £1260. For two Engines you must have two men to work them and the trifling repairs will cost twice as much. I cannot recommend the application of Engines to the raising of water to be applied to a Water Wheel because there will be a loss of nearly 50% of the power, moreover there is the expense of the Pumps. The Cornish gentlemen have got a little twilight on the merits of Hornblower's Engine and have discovered that a bushel of coal produces only half the effect it does on one of our Engines, therefore the fury of some gentlemen is a little abated." Also typical is the note from Erasmus Darwin to Matthew Boulton 1873. March 4th. Derby - M Boulton, Soho. Birmingham. "We have established an infant philosophical Society at Derby, but do not presume to compare it to your well known gigantic philosophers at Birmingham." He goes on to say that he has spoken repeatedly of Boulton and Watt's Engine to Arkwright's friends. He also begs to be remembered "to all The Insane at your next [Lunar] meeting." Then there are Boulton's approaches to try to get Dr James Keir to come to work for him at Soho. Endorsed on the Wrapper:- "Mr Keir's Remarks on Partnership supposed abt 1775". 1 p. 4 to. "(1). The proposal of 1/4 of the
general profits of Boulton and Fothergill is impracticable, because
of the large 16 January 1777, Stourbridge - M B, Soho,
Birmingham. 4 pp 4 to. "I have written another letter to you [see enclosure] by this post with intention of showing it, if you approve, to Mr F[othergill] in order to get him to declare his sentiments. ... it would be proper to give him the outlines of our late conversation on the footing which we thought I had best be on, or begin on. To save you the trouble of recollecting, I will repeat them - 'That as your manufactory requires more attention, then you or any one man can give and even as part of your present attention may be withdrawn from the Manufactory to the Fire Engine business, you think it prudent to call in more assistance. That, besides, as the whole weight of the manufacturing part of the business rests on you, at present, therefore a possible accident happening to you would derange the whole system to the detriment of your family and also his property, you think it necessary to give it some further support or security, ... that he should suffer no diminuation of his profits. ... That if I come, I intend to carry on my chemical work.'" 1777, Stourbridge - M B, Soho Birmingham. 4 pp folio (incomplete) "In answer to the questions contained in your letter, I have the honour to acquaint you (1). That as soon as our Glass-making Partnership expires, which will be on Jan 1st, 1778, I mean to quit that trade. (2) No plan of business appears to me as eligible as that you mention of joining interests with you, and of assisting you in the chemical or other part of your business. (3) I wish to attach myself to you, in as undivided a manner as you shall think expedient. (4) I will accept any charge you shall think fit to entrust me with, in case I should survive you. (5) As to conditions and emoluments, my confidence in you is so entire, that I shall distrust my own judgement, if it happens to differ from yours." 1778, Soho - M B, Redruth, Cornwall. 4 pp 4 to. "I have received Mr Watt's letter ordering a gigantic Engine for Poldice mine. Playfair had copied the drawing and sent the original to Bersham with orders to give preference to this Engine over all others. ... I know not, neither does Playfair, the use of the Gunboreings sent to Mr Meason. Please to say in your next and I will write to him. I have received a letter from Mr Baumgartner in which he says Mr Wiss is to write tomorrow and accepts of the proposal and means to purchase four of your one hundred pounds (annuities)." Also, another useful example is the following extract from Dr John Roebuck writing to Matthew Boulton, July 22, 1760. "You will no doubt have expected before this time to have received some account from me of the state of our Colliery. The fact is I have been so thoroughly engaged in the business of the Iron Works and the Colliery that I have not had leisure to write. At present we get about 300 tons of Coal weekly from one Pit and 100 tons from another. I examined the whole Colliery with Mr Gibbons and have with his advice fixed on a Plan for extending the Colliery so as to be able to raise 100,000 tons annually, and for this purpose we are now sinking four Pits. By these Pits we shall command a field of Coal 7ft thick and 3000 yds extent one way, and 500 yds the other. That is 3000 yds to the Level and 500 yds from the Dip to the Rise. The Pits are near the sea and the Coals are carried to the Pier-head by a Waggon Way, 1000 yds long. The Salt Pans are advantageously situated as we sell a very considerable quantity of land at a high price. I make no doubt your tenth Share will amount to so much as what I hinted: but if not acceptable to you, I should be glad to know because my brother Oates at Leeds has solicited me to part with a share to him." A final two examples came from James Watt's
correspondence to Matthew Boulton. The first is from Watt's letter
of October 20th, 1768 from Glasgow to M Boulton at Soho,
Birmingham. "I got safe home on Wednesday last week. When you were so kind as to express a desire to be concerned in my fire engine I was sorry I could not immediately make you an offer. I had involved myself in a considerable debt before I had brought the theory of the fire engine to its present state. Dr Roebuck agreed to take my debts upon him. I made over to him two thirds of the property of the Invention: the debts and expenses are now about £1200. It gave me great joy when you seemed to think favourably of our scheme as to wish to engage in it..." The second comes from James Watt's letter to Dr William Small, again from Glasgow, dated January 28, 1769. (3pp folio). "I wrote you last Sunday with a copy of the intended Specification which I hope you have read. I have not heard from Boulton yet: I fancy it will be best to defer the bargaining till the Doctor and I be in England. I have been trying experiments on the Reciprocating Engine. I have improved the Condenser. I have contrived a most excellent method of measuring distances by means of a telescope. [Sketch]. Our pottery is doing tolerably. I have tryed no chemical experiments this winter. What new things is Mr Boulton doing and what are you contriving? How is Capt Keir employed?" This project provides an opportunity for a fresh look at the substance and impact of the Industrial Revolution and suggests the potential of much fruitful interdisciplinary work between economic historians, mechanical engineers and historians of science. Given that each part has a clear theme and unity, libraries can acquire the project part by part confident that each one has clear research and teaching potential. Sterling Price: £1320 - US Dollar Price: $2100 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 2 of our project Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History covering the Boulton and Watt Archive and Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library concentrates on the Notebooks and Papers of James Watt and family from the 8 boxes of material in Muirhead I. James Watt was born at Greenock in January 1736 and began work in Glasgow at the age of 18. His father was a builder, contractor, instrument-maker, ship owner and merchant. In 1755 the young Watt spent a year in London learning how to make precision mathematical instruments. Two years later he opened a shop in Glasgow and by 1759 had entered into partnership with John Craig. He became involved in canal construction and made various journeys to London on canal business. Watt, of course, is famous for his pioneering work on steam power and his steam engine became known as "the work-horse of the Industrial Revolution". After repairing a Newcomen engine model in 1763 belonging to the College of Glasgow his work on the separate condenser steam-engine started in earnest around 1765. Before he moved to Birmingham, Watt's circle of friends and peers included Joseph Black (who described latent heat) and Adam Smith. Watt, according to his Memoir of Boulton written in Glasgow in September 1809, first visited Soho Works in Birmingham in 1767. He was introduced to Dr William Small and his partner Mr Fothergill who then showed him round the works. In 1768 he was again at Soho, on his return from London where he had been taking the necessary steps to obtain a patent for the improved steam engine. On this visit he was introduced to Matthew Boulton who had been absent on the previous occasion. Watt records: "I had much conversation with Mr Boulton ... On my part I explained to him my invention of the Steam Engine and several other schemes of which my head was then full, in the success of which he expressed a friendly interest. My stay at Birmingham at that time was short, but I afterwards kept up a correspondence with Mr Boulton through our mutual friend Dr Small." In 1774 Boulton took over Roebuck's share in the patent of Watt's invention. Watt moved to Birmingham, details of the journey are recorded in one of his notebooks, and continued his experimental work on the engine with great success. He quickly became an active member of the Lunar Society. The patent was extended for 25 years from 1775 and a partnership between Boulton and Watt was concluded for a similar term. The material in Part 2 is a rich source for Watt's developing interest in steam power including details of his experiments. Four notebooks cover his early notes on this subject and there is also a substantial section of correspondence, for the period 1778-1785, between James Watt and Joseph Priestley, Joseph Banks, Mr de Lue, Joseph Black and Mr Kirwan concerning various experiments with air, conversion of water to air and the composition of water. Notebooks and other Papers also contain much material on his Canal Surveys (at least 30 items are devoted to this topic - particularly the Strathmore, Monkland, Crinan, Borrowstonness, and Caledonian Canals); early negotiations with Roebuck and Boulton 1772-1774; insights into the patent process; other engineering works [for example, Greenock Harbour and Waterworks, Port Glasgow Dry Dock and Harbour, Ayr Harbour, Hamilton Bridge, Rutherglen Bridge and numerous River Surveys]; Watt Engines in Cornwall and throughout England and Scotland; notes of Watt's journeys to London, Cornwall and Scotland; and a strong collection of printed items including "Directions for Erecting and Working the Newly-Invented Steam Engines by Boulton and Watt" (annotated copy 1779), memoirs of James Watt, and an account of "James Watt's Improvements upon the Steam Engine". There are also some documents relating to his early life, family matters, and to his father, James Watt, and also to the death of his first wife, Margaret. Two boxes of material relate to his son, James Watt, jnr. A diary of a journey to visit mines in Germany and Bohemia (1787), his travels in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany (1792-3); substantial documentation on the Soho Manufactory and Foundry including materials for new engines, wages for workmen, pricing policy, a plan to establish watchmen at the Soho Manufactory (1801), visits to various mines and engines in the north of England (Manchester, Bradford, Newcastle, Durham, 1798), visits to the collieries and iron works of South Wales, a notebook containing a geographical list of engines and mines (1808); notes of experiments with steam boat engines; and notes on various engines at Water Works in Lambeth, Chelsea, West Middlesex and elsewhere James Watt jnr was very active in the Boulton and Watt businesses by the mid 1790's. The firm of Boulton, Watt and Sons was established in 1794. These Notebooks and related papers feature very full entries and include some excellent diagrams, plans and drawings. This microform edition enables the scholar to examine closely the impact of Watt's invention and see clearly the ties between business, industry and scientific inventions. Each part of this project has a clear theme and unity. Libraries can acquire the project part by part confident that each area has clear research and teaching potential. The paperback guide comes with full contents of reels, background information such as data on prominent individuals, detailed listings, chronologies and other relevant bibliographic details. Sterling Price: £940 - US Dollar Price: $1500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Over 3500 drawings covering some 272 separate engines are brought together in this section devoted to original manuscript plans and diagrams. Watt's original engine was a single-acting device for producing a reciprocating stroke. It had an efficiency four times that of the atmospheric engine and was used extensively for pumping water at reservoirs, by brine works, breweries, distilleries, and in the metal mines of Cornwall. To begin with it played a relatively small part in the coal industry. In the iron industry these early engines were used to raise water to turn the great wheels which operated the bellows, forge hammers, and rolling mills. Even at this first stage of development it had important effects on output. However, Watt was extremely keen to make improvements on his initial invention. His mind had long been busy with the idea of converting the to and fro action into a rotary movement, capable of turning machinery and this was made possible by a number of devices, including the "sun-and-planet", a patent for which was taken out in 1781. In the following year came the double-acting, rotative engine, in 1784 the parallel motion engine, and in 1788, a device known as the "governor", which gave the greater regularity and smoothness of working essential in a prime mover for the more delicate and intricate of industrial processes. The introduction of the rotative engine was a momentous event. By 1800 Boulton and Watt had built and put into operation over 500 engines, a large majority being of the "sun and planet type". The Engineering Drawings reproduced here enable a thorough examination of developments between 1775 and 1800 and reflect the dominance of the "Sun and Planet Type" of engine in this period. The material is made available under geographical headings to facilitate regional comparisons, analysis of distribution of engine types and method of use and employment. The first "Sun and Planet" engine was set up at Soho, in Birmingham, towards the end of 1782. By this time the call for rotative engines had become very insistent. In June 1781 Boulton wrote "the people in London, Manchester, and Birmingham are steam mill mad", and Watt, in September 1782, exclaimed "Surely the devil of rotations is afoot". Watt was now hard at work on rotative engines, dealing with schemes and with enquiries from people who wanted engines. His Blotting and Calculation Book of 1782-3 shows him making experiments on the friction of the engine, calculating the size of the flywheels, and working out the power required to drive corn-mills, cotton mills, and mills for rasping and grinding logwood. In October 1782 we find him complaining to Boulton that his research work on rotative engines had been taking up all his time with the result that much other business had been neglected. The first rotative engine erected outside the Soho establishment was that put up for John Wilkinson at Bradley. It was in operation at the end of March 1783. The drawings for this engine are covered in this microfilm edition. They are part of Portfolio 249. The other engines made for Bradley between 1780 and 1791 are also covered and include engines for boring and turning, a Colliery Winding Engine and a Rolling and Slitting Engine. The "Sun and Planet" gear and cam-shaft for the Bradley Forge Engine are well illustrated in a drawing dated July 1782. The sun-wheel is 48 inches in diameter, and had 36 teeth, so that the pitch is about 4 in; it consists of two rings, 3 in wide, bolted together with the teeth stepped; the shape of the teeth is shown in large scale in the top figure of the drawing. The outer ring is bolted to a disk formed on the end of the journal section of the cast-iron shaft; the periphery of the disk is formed with recesses to receive joggles on the rings. The planet-wheel is half the size of the sun-wheel and consists of two toothed disks, separated by a disk of wrought iron engaging between the rings of the sun-wheel; the inner disk is formed with a gudgeon to receive one end of a link which at the other end embraces the shaft; the outer face of the other disk is formed with a cross-shaped recess to receive a corresponding joggle cast on the end of the connecting-rod, to which the planet-wheel is secured by bolts passing through disks. Further examples of engines covered include: Aitchesons & Brown for a Distillery
at Clackmannan (first drawings January 1787) At first Watt was not quite satisfied with
the "Sun and Planet" gear. He found that the revolutionary
wheel had a How were the Engine's made? In 1775 there were no engine works in existence anywhere in Britain. Engines were put together on site, at the mine or mill in question, with the erection being supervised by an engineer. The engineer, in some instances, entered into a contract to supply an engine, but more usually he seems to have been paid for his services, and the engine parts and materials were purchased directly by the mine or mill-owner, who also paid the workmen employed on the job. The principal parts bought in a condition ready for use were the cylinder, cylinder bottom, and the working barrels of the pumps. The bored cast-iron work - cylinders and pump barrels - all came from one of four ironworks - Coalbrookdale, New Willey, Bersham, or Carron. The smaller castings were sometimes obtained from the same place as the cylinders, at other times locally. The boiler, and all the wrought-iron work, was made on the spot, and the wooden beams also. Accordingly the engineer had under him a staff of smiths, carpenters, plumbers, and masons for building the engine house. This, indeed, was the position of affairs when Boulton and Watt commenced erecting their engines, and it was substantially on these lines that the firm carried on work for a number of years. Taking the period say about 1780 the valves and nozzles were the only parts of the engine made regularly at Soho. They cylinder, its cover and bottom, the piston, the air-pump, and the condenser were made at Bersham, then in the hands of John Wilkinson, who made nearly every one of Boulton and Watt's cylinders up to the year 1795. The nozzles themselves were cast at another of Wilkinson's works - Bradley, a few miles from Birmingham - and brought to Soho to be fitted. Beam gudgeons, plummer blocks, and sundry other castings were supplied from the same works, while the cylinder jacket, or outer cylinder, together with some smaller work were cast at the Eagle Foundry, Birmingham. Fire-bars and other furnace fittings and small parts were sometimes cast in the locality where the engine was to be erected. The copper eduction pipes were made in London, and the wrought-iron piston-rods either at Seaton in Cumberland or in London. These parts were ordered by Boulton and Watt from the various makers on account of the mine - or mill-owner; Boulton and Watt sent the necessary drawings and instructions, and kept a staff of men to supervise and do part of the work of erecting. These men were paid by the person for whom the engine was being erected. It was one of the great difficulties of the firm to get together, and to retain, a suitable staff of erectors. The course pursued in erecting an engine in the year 1778, is described in great detail by Watt himself in connection with an engine for pumping brine at Thirlewood at the Lawton Saltworks, Cheshire (Salmon's engine). His account is too long to reproduce in full. An outline of the main features is set out below:- "When Watt arrived at Lawton on February 4, 1778, the engine materials were on the spot, and he found the engine-house ready for putting up the cylinder. Next day the beam was got up and the martingales at the cylinder end put on; also the cylinder bottom was set out for drilling. On the 6th the inner bottom was drilled for the holding-down screws, and the brick platform or foundation for the cylinder was begun; this was completed the following day, when also the windlass was fixed on the upper floor. On the 9th the upper flange of the cylinder was drilled and the small holes in the inner bottom were drilled and tapped; the inner bottom was then screwed down and the inner cylinder put in place. Next day an attempt was made to raise the outer cylinder; but, in consequence of a failure of the rope, this was not accomplished until the day after, when also the inner cylinder was levelled, the two cylinders set nearly parallel, and the lower part of the nozzle fitted; on this day too the boiler seat and the ash-hole were marked out. On the 12th the setting parallel of the cylinders was completed, the bottom joints of the outer cylinder made with dung and blood, the upper part of the nozzle fitted, the condenser cistern moved into its place, and the copper education-pipes tried together." On this day Watt remarks: "We had a good deal of chiselling at the flanches of inner cylinder opposite the holding down screws before would suffer front joint of outer cylinder and bottom to come fair and we had to cut off the outer side of ye washers under the pillars to a quarter inch broad, otherwise kept the bottom joint open." "On the 13th both nozzles were screwed on 'for good', the joints being made with pasteboard and putty, the boiler setting was begun, and half the upper floor of the engine-house laid. Next day the two cylinders were set perpendicular, and the piston filled up with wood; the piston-rod, it was found, did not fit the piston, being 3in in diameter at the base of the cone instead of 2 5/8in; the boiler seat was finished and the chimney commenced. On the 16th, the next working day, the boiler was put on its seat and the flues built up to the arch, the piston was put in, the screws of the stuffing-box lengthened, the guide-posts fixed up, the holes bored in the plug-tree, and staples made for the Y-shafts. The following day the working-gear was fitted up, and on the day after more work was done on the gear, and the air-pump was screwed together. The 19th saw the joining up of the eduction pipe, 'by pouring lead with a small mixture of tin into copper bosses surrounding the joints', the drilling of the steam pipe flanges, more work on the working-gear, the completion of the boiler setting, and progress on the chimney. The next day we have two men making screws, another soldering up the hot-water pump, another putting the arches for the air-pump chains on the beam. On the 21st certain defective joints in the eduction pipe were unsoldered and made afresh, and the beam was adjusted. The next week was taken up in work connected with the pump end of the beam, and in fitting and fixing the steam-pipe, fixing down the condenser in its cistern, hanging the chains for working the air-pump, fitting the brake or lever for working that pump by hand, and fixing the manhole screws in the boiler. Later, there is an entry that: 'Manhole screws with T-heads would not answer, ordered bolt-head screws and fixed nuts'. On March 3rd fire was put under the boiler, and the piston packed, and on the day after steam was turned on to the engine which was found 'in general very tight'. The succeeding days were taken up in minor jobs, and then on the afternoon of the 11th we read 'set the engine agoing, raised water to top of pitt trees, drew much air, and the condenser top let in much water, about a gallon pr stroke'. On the 12th the engine was christened in the presence of 'a great lot of people'. The engine went off very well, but not so the pumps; 'the upper lift soon begun to draw air, sett on ye jack-head but it proved very leaky ... with difficulty got a little brine to top of bank'. Although the engine worked, it was not doing what it should do, so the following day, in addition to overhauling the pumps, the air-pump and condenser were attended to, and Watt gave instructions for an alteration of the gear for working the exhaust valve. He left Lawton on March 14th. It will be seen that the work of erection began on February 4th, and that the engine was set going on March 11th. There were some minor difficulties with the pumps, but the engine itself went off very well, and it continued to do well, for in August 1779 we find that Salmon had written 'a letter full of praises of his engine'." [Reproduced from pages 257 et seq in James Watt and the Steam Engine by Dickinson & Jenkins (Clarendon Press 1927)]. See also letter Watt to Boulton, August 13, 1779 in the Matthew Boulton Papers (covered elsewhere in this microfilm project: see Part 1). By the year 1778 the procedure in erecting the engines had become regular and systematic. This is borne out by the fact that in the following year Watt set about the production of a hand-book bearing the title: 'Directions for erecting and working the newly-invented steams engines. By Boulton and Watt.' This, the first book in the English language devoted to the steam engine, was not published in the ordinary way, but was produced for private circulation among the clients of the firm, who, it must be understood, were under no compulsion to have their engines put up by the Soho erectors. It seems that one hundred copies only were printed, and the book is accordingly very rare; it is reproduced in Part 2 of this microfilm project. The title-page bears no date, but certain entries in Watt's Journal make it clear that it was printed in 1779. "1779: Some years later, after the introduction of the rotative engine, another set of 'Directions relating to the engine' was printed as a single sheet, no doubt with the intention that it should be pasted on a board and hung up in the engine-house. This also is reproduced, in Part 2 of this microfilm project. But apart from these 'Directions', we find Boulton and Watt making free use of printing in the course of their business. For their reply to an inquiry for a mine pumping-engine they had a seven-page quarto pamphlet: 'Proposals to the Adventurers in ... By Boulton and Watt', setting forth in full the conditions for the grant of a licence to use the engine, and the manner in which the royalty was determined, with blank spaces for the insertion of such particulars as the name of the mine and the size of the engine. Printed lists of the materials for each engine came into use in 1778. These lists were filled in in writing with the names of the places from which the various parts were to be supplied and any necessary directions as to erecting, etc. For the engines in Cornwall printed forms were employed from 1780 for the periodical returns of the engine performances, and printed books were supplied to the mines for the same purpose. Curiously enough, as it may seem to us now, the firm did not make use of printed letter-headings. When we consider the developed state of the means of transport at that period, it becomes an interesting subject for the study how the different parts from these widely separated localities were brought together at about the same time, for the erection of an engine, say, in Cornwall. It is clear that a good deal of fore-thought and an extensive organization were necessary, and that the commercial side of the Boulton and Watt concern had not a few difficulties to surmount. The transport of goods made in London was the simplest problem of all, as there was a frequent service of ships direct between the Thames and one or other of the Cornish ports. The goods from Soho and Birmingham were carted to the Canal, along which they were taken to Stourport on the Severn. There they were transhipped and carried down the river to Gloucester, Bristol, or Chepstow, and again transhipped into a coasting vessel which completed the transit. The goods sent direct from Bradley could be loaded into the canal barge at the works. The Bersham goods were sent by road to Chester and there shipped to a Cornish port. Usually the cargo was made up with fire-bricks, in which there was a considerable trade to Cornwall. The piston-rods made at Seaton were usually shipped at Whitehaven or Workington to Liverpool, taken thence to Chester, where they were loaded on the same vessel as the cylinder, etc, from Bersham. At least this was the course that it desired to follow, but frequently the rod did not arrive to time. The Soho Manufactory was established in 1765. It is only in 1781 that we find Boulton engaged about the plan of a new engine-shop, a two-story building that was completed by the end of the year and cost a little under £110. A perusal of the Boulton and Watt papers show that Watt did not take any active part in the direction of the engine works, or in the improvement of the methods of production. He had an office at his house at Harper's Hill, and it was there that he carried out his work, calculations, drawings, and correspondence; the mere bulk of the product forms abundant evidence that he worked very hard, and it is clear that frequently many days elapsed between his visits to Soho to inspect the progress of any new schemes on hand, and to discuss business matters with Boulton. Possibly in Boulton's absence his visits may have been more frequent, but on one occasion we find Boulton writing from Cornwall requesting him to try to go down to Soho, or else to send his assistant Playfair, to see that matters are going forward satisfactorily. It was Boulton who managed the works, kept an eye on costs, and sought to improve the methods of production. Thus we find him writing, from Cornwall, that cast iron was not suitable material for the racks and sectors for operating the valves, and suggesting that 'it would be safer to forge them of steel & cut them down with a cutter in the mill', and then a little later on suggesting a machine for dividing and cutting the teeth. See letter, Boulton to Watt, November 6, 1780 in the Boulton and Watt Collection. Boulton also writes to Watt on the subject of nozzle-fitting, in which they are much behind hand, suggests that the collars for the spindles be made of brass instead of steel as it would save time and expense, and comes back to the tooth-cutting machine and the grinding of the flats 'instead of chiselling'. See letter, Boulton to Watt, April 19, 1782 in the Boulton and Watt Collection. Boulton next turns his attention to the castings themselves, and proposes to go over to Bradley Ironworks to see a nozzle moulded, and to discuss with the moulder the best means to avoid the considerable amount of chipping now entailed in fitting up the nozzles. Apparently, it was not before the year of 1794 that the firm took the first serious steps towards doing more of the engine work themselves. The original ideas was to have a boring-mill, and Peter Ewart, who was then in business as a millwright, and superintending the erection of Boulton and Watt's engines in Manchester, was brought to Soho to design and superintend the erection of a separate establishment at Smethwick, which became known as the Soho Foundry, and was about a mile distant from the parent establishment. Soho had the disadvantage that everything had to be brought there and taken away by road; when the question arose of dealing with large cylinders and other heavy articles this became an important matter, possibly it may have been the factor that determined the setting up of a new works; at any rate in selecting a site for it the point was kept in view, and the plot of land acquired had a frontage to the Birmingham Canal, from which a branch was cut and a dock formed within the works. The production of drawings for all these engines was a considerable endeavour. Drawings were made at Watt's own private residence, and when he got the assistance of Playfair, and afterwards of Southern, it was at his house that they attended. This remained the state of affairs until 1790 when the drawing office was moved to Soho Manufactory. There was no separate drawing office at the Foundry, although this was a distinct engine-making business; at least this seems to have been the case as late as 1826. The development of the Soho Engine Manufactory during the fifteen years 1786-1801 is illustrated by a paper in the Muirhead Collection which summarises the amount of the inventory of the property, the number of the workmen, the wages paid, and the number of engines put up in these years. On October 1, 1786, the inventory showed the value of the property to be £2,319; on October 1, 1800, it amounted to £9,010. The wages paid to the workmen for the first year of this period amounted to £1,688, and for the last year £3,407. In 1786-7 from fifteen to twenty men were employed (not including the men engaged outside as erectors); in 1795-6 the number was from fifty to fifty-five. For the period 1798-1803 some interesting particulars of the costs and methods of production at the Engine Manufactory are summarized later on with like information in respect of Soho Foundry. The two establishments were conducted as separate concerns, and the Engine Manufactory continued in operation until about 1850, when the Soho Manufactory was dismantled and the engineering establishment was concentrated at Soho Foundry. Conclusion As Professor Barry Supple, Master, St Catherine's
College, Cambridge, comments: Sterling Price: £625 - US Dollar Price: $960 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page
Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History This part includes subject material for the period c1760- 1840 on: Albion Mill In contrast with the previous parts Part 4 elucidates the business history of the Boulton enterprises, showing how ideas and inventions were implemented. It shows how Boulton used his capital to build up a diverse portfolio of companies. Files on the Plate Company for the period 1796- 1848; Buttons gilted and plated, 1795-1808; Silk Reels East Indies Company, 1779- 1785; Early Accounts, 1751-1779; Rose Copper Company, 1793-1821; and the Trade Accounts of Boulton, Watt and Co for 1794-1842 enable the researcher to study some of these companies in detail. A box of Biographical material contains lots of useful material covering the contest with Cornish Miners [see also the relevant subject file on this]; the appointment of Matthew Boulton as an Overseer of the Poor in Handsworth [see also the relevant file on Shrievalty, the Soho volunteers and the Harborne Poor Rates ]; Lists of Books in Matthew Boulton's handwriting; a plan of a journey from Birmingham to London by Canal Boat in 1805; His Will; Epitaphs, Funeral Arrangements and Invitations; Biographical Notes by James Watt, James Keir and others; Medals and prints; a Balance of the Books [December 1809]; an article about Matthew Boulton in the European Magazine and London Review [September 1809] and other newspaper articles and illustrative documentation. The files on Birmingham reveal a great deal of detail about Boulton's social life and philanthropic activity. There is material on the Birmingham Society of Arts, the Theatre, the Birmingham Workhouse, the General Hospital, the Dispensary, the Police, the Overseers of the Poor, the Philosophical Society, along with Minutes of Birmingham Town Meetings (1790-1797). There is also documentation here on his interests in the Birmingham Mining and Copper Company, Birmingham Canal Navigations, more on the Birmingham Copper Trade, Birmingham Flour and Bread Company, Birmingham Metal Company, as well as significant material on the Birmingham Riots. Boulton played an active part on the Birmingham Commercial Committee and in its review of the Copper and Brass Trades. He was also heavily involved with the General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain. Matthew Boulton took over as Chairman of the Birmingham Committee from Samuel Garbett in 1790. Minutes, Notes on Proceedings, a full list of members of the Committees, and important papers on the state of the Copper Trade, the Protection of manufacturing interests through concerned action, and pricing policy are covered in the subject files on the Birmingham Commercial Committee, the General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain chaired by Josiah Wedgwood, Copper, Contest with Cornish Miners, Cornish Metal Company, Irish Propositions, Iron Trade, and Russia: Prohibitions, 1793 reproduced here in full. Also this material amply demonstrates the links and co-operation between men of science, merchants, manufacturers and entrepreneurs collaborating to have a concerted voice on all matters concerning prices, internal and external trade, standards, trading restrictions, patents and petitions. Another series of boxes provide substantial evidence about the Soho Manufactory and the Soho Foundry, including the Boulton and Watt Engine Manufactory. Highlights include a Table of Prices of Engines (1795); papers on Experiments on the Forging of Iron at Soho Foundry; Forging at Smethwick Technical details on Boilers and Valves; details on the buildings comprising the Soho Manufactory; an envelope containing "Particulars of the Houses and Workshops and Mills of Soho" along with "Dimensions of Soho Shops and Buildings" dated 1789-1790, and eleven portfolios of drawings. Other material and drawings cover Soho House and Garden; Canals, especially the Birmingham Canal, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the London and Western Canal, the Dudley Canal, the Bill for improving the Birmingham Canal and the proposed cut from this canal through to Soho and the diversion of the Soho mill stream; and also an important file (described below) on Albion Mill. There are 86 items concerning the Albion Mill. This corn mill was erected by Boulton and his partners in the City of London at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge in 1786. (See Engineering Drawings for Albion Mill reproduced in Part 3 of this project). Here we have papers and correspondence highlighting the importance of the biggest and best equipped mill of the period. The work of construction and erecting the engine was supervised by John Rennie. The first trial of the machinery was made before a great crowd of spectators, including Sir Joseph Banks. There were problems with the sun and planet gear, which had been made by Wilkinson, and other parts of the working gear were defective. These affairs are well documented and appear to have greatly troubled Boulton who was in London for much of this time. He seems to have spent considerable time and effort overcoming the initial difficulties. There were added problems with the piston rod of the engine. By April 1786 repairs had been made and the mill was again tested for engine performance. In ten hours 48 buckets of coal were consumed and 527 buckets of wheat ground into flour. By the beginning of 1789 the second engine with its set of mill stones had been laid down. By 1790 the output of the mill was very considerable for the period. The sales of flour in a week in June 1790 amounted to £6,800, but Boulton was still not satisfied with the state of affairs in respect of finance and organisation - see Boulton to Watt letter of January 10, 1791. However, his concern on this account was terminated soon after by an even greater calamity. The Albion Mill was destroyed by fire on March 2, 1791. There were strong suspicions of foul play and Boulton called for a thorough investigations by the Government as a matter of national importance. On the other hand, Rennie and Wyatt, the manager of the Mill, thought that the fire was caused by accident due to a lack of grease of the large corn machine in front of the kiln ... was this negligence? In many quarters there was great rejoicing, especially amongst the mob, rival millers and mealmen discontented by the virtual monopoly of the London flour trade by the Albion Mill Company. The Mill was not rebuilt, but it was sometime before the affairs of the Company were wound up. As late as 1800 the erection of a new engine and mill was still under discussion. The material on the Albion Mill made available here enables the researcher to look in detail at this enterprise and controversy which captivated the attention of so many people at the time. All the documents brought together in Part 4 demonstrate how Boulton achieved a pivotal position amongst entrepreneurs through a shrewd use of capital, patronage and advice, coupled with the success of the Boulton and Watt Engine business. The strength of the Boulton and Watt archive is that it brings together a rich mixture of papers concerning the development of science and technology, business records and the personal archive of one of Britain's greatest entrepreneurs. This part emphasises the entrepreneurial dexterity of Matthew Boulton through the complete range of his subject files. Sterling Price: £1800 - US Dollar Price: $2840 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Whilst Part 3 covered drawings of the Sun
and Planet Type, Part 5 addresses the wide range of other engines
of Part 5 features over 3300 drawings. Crank Type Engines Of particular note are the drawings of engines for Sarah Dunkerley for a Cotton Mill at Oldham, the Colliery Winding Engine for Saltcoates, engines for Werneth Colliery, Cockshead Colliery, and Tredegar Iron Works. Engines were designed for Cotton Mills, Collieries, Iron Foundries and Iron Works, Silk Mills, Lead Mills, Ropemakers, Dyers, Breweries, Corn and Oil Mills, Portsmouth Dockyard, and a Distillery in Holland. Of the crank arrangements, according to Dickinson & Jenkins in James Watt and the Steam Engine (Clarendon Press 1927), the one that is of real importance is the arrangement of two cranks set at an angle of 120 degrees on the same shaft and worked by two cylinders. In July 1781 John Wilkinson was anxious to have a forge worked by a steam engine and Boulton wanted to supply him with a two-cylinder engine with cranks so arranged. He tells Watt: "I have got a very pretty modell
which is either 2 forges, or, when I please is 1 rolling mill and
I am persuaded it will answer in great ... Wilkinson has seen it
and nobody else, not even the workman who made it. It is ye double
crank worked with 2 engines. I think 2 thirty inch cylinders will
work 2 such forges. You have so much more important and full employ
abt. ye mines that I don't think you shall be troubled with projects
but if you will consent for me and Wilkinson to hammer out a pair
of forges you shall have non of the dishonor, plague, trouble, dispute,
or expence and you shall have all the profit. I think if we make
expts. upon anybody should they be made upon Wilkinson, as he is
doubly interested in the expts. perhaps the first forge may not
be the best possible, but I am sure of making a good one. Nothing
shall be done without previously acquainting you, nor then, if you
object. You can neither loose reputation nor money and you are sure
to gain by Wilkinson's experience. He is so very hot upon it that
I don't think it possible to appease him without erecting ye forge.
It must be done or quarrell." A letter a week later gives a sketch of
the arrangement of engines and hammers and states that it is proposed
to erect for Wilkinson at Willey two engines with cylinders 27 in
diam, with 7ft strokes, to work a 6 cwt hammer and a 2 cwt hammer
120 blows per minute, the whole framing of the forge to be of cast
iron and the anvil block to be 10 tons weight. Wilkinson, it appears,
preferred the tilting to the lifting hammer. The term of Pickard's patent expired in 1794, but Boulton and Watt seem to have been applying the crank to a limited extent a few years before that date. The drawings, dated September 1791, of an engine for Wright and Jesson show a cast-iron crank; the drawings of the years 1792 and 1793 include but two crank engines, 1794 has none, but the years 1795-1796 have two each. The sun-and-planet gear continued to be made as late as 1802. One of the early crank engines was a winding-engine for John Sparrow, and the drawing is headed 'Cockshead No 2 Aug 10, 1793'. The framing is entirely of wood, and the beam and connecting-rod are likewise of wood. The cylinder, 14 in diam., is carried on a wood frame, the vertical members of which pass down one on each side of the condensing cistern. The beam-gudgeon bearings are supported under the bearings by posts; diagonal struts extend from the tops of the posts to a trestle frame carrying the crank-shaft bearing. The plug-rod is of wood with an iron link connexion to the beam, and the air-pump rod is jointed to its lower end. On a drawing for a very similar engine for Hawks & Co dated December 7, 1795, we find on the boiler steam-pipe the notes 'to be very well wrapped' - an early instance of clothing pipes. Canal Engines An engine for pumping back water at the Smethwick locks on the Birmingham Canal was ordered at the beginning of 1777. It was at work in March 1778, and was said to go 'exceedingly well'. In April it was tested by John Smeaton for the Canal Committee, 'much to his satisfaction', indeed Smeaton as so impressed by the performance that he relinquished, in favour of Boulton and Watt, a contract that he had entered into for the construction of a steam engine for the Hull Waterworks. The following account of the trial appears in Aris's Birmingham Gazette for April 20, 1778. 'The following Letter received last Week by the Committee of the Birmingham Canal Navigation, form their Superintendant of the Locks, affords an irrefragable Proof of the great Utility of a new-invented Steam Engine, lately erected on the said Canal, under the immediate Direction of Messrs. Boulton and Watt, the Patentees. To the Committee of the Birmingham Canal. "Gentlemen, - On Wednesday last Mr Smeaton made an accurate Trial of the Steam Engine erected lately on the Canal at this place, and it appeared that it did not consume more than 64lb of Coal an Hour when working at the rate of 11 Strokes a Minute (each Stroke being Five Feet Ten Inches). The Diameter of the working barrel of the Pump is 20 Inches; and the perpendicular Height of the Column of Water is 26 Feet 10 Inches and a Half, equal to 11-lb. 3-qrs. upon every square Inch of the Piston: The Quantity of Water raised at each Stroke is equal to 12 3 qrs. cubic Feet." "Mr Smeaton declared, that the best new common Engine, with all his late Improvements (which are very considerable) would have required 194 lb of Coal to raise an equal Quantity of Water to the same height; and that a common Engine without those Improvements would consume a still greater Quantity." "When that Asperities on the different working parts of this Engine are worn off, and the Cylinder is eased and finished, as is intended, I have not a doubt but it will be an Advantage to the Proprietors of 20 per cent more." "I am, Gentlemen, your most humble Servant, S BULL."' At the end of the year 1778 the Canal authorities ordered another engine for Spon Lane Locks; this was at work in June 1779. It had a 32-inch cylinder, and save in respect of cylinder diameter was a duplicate of 30-inch engine for Donnington Wood that was being made at the same time. Before the end of 1783 a third engine had been ordered, for Ocker Hill Locks. Both Boulton and Watt had a strong interest in Canals and, of course, the waterways were vital at the time for the transport of goods. Over 200 drawings on the subject are made available in this section. Dock and Harbour Engines Water Works The engine is interesting in that it was one of those in which the piston rose in vacuum. The lower end of the cylinder was in permanent connection with the condenser, and the steam was exhausted from the top of the cylinder direct to the condenser, instead of first passing to the lower end of the cylinder, as in the normal type of single-acting engines. The equilibrium valve in this arrangement became the exhaust valve, and it was placed near the top of the cylinder just below the steam valve. A valve, adjusted by hand, was sometimes placed in the education pipe to regulate the flow of steam to the condenser. Farey discusses the pros and cons of the arrangement. The intended advantage of this construction is, he says, that the whole time of the ascent of the piston is allowed for the condensation of the steam, and therefore it might be expected to produce a better vacuum, and a more immediate stroke, than in other constructions, in which the condensation of all the steam in the cylinder must be made after the piston arrived at the top of its stroke and before it can begin to return. He goes on to say that in practice this advantage was not found to be of great importance, and the scheme had the disadvantage that leakage at the stuffing-box and at the joint of the cylinder-cover was greatly increased, and the leakage was now leakage of air into vacuum, instead of being confined to leakage of steam into the atmosphere. Then again, in order that the piston might rise at the same speed as in the ordinary engine, a heavier counterweight was required at the outer end of the beam. The last objection that Farey brings forward is quite interesting; it is that the heat losses in the cylinder are necessarily greater than with the usual way of working, since the steam-jacket was pouring in heat for a greater proportion of the cycle. At the date of Farey's writing (say 1826) the plan had long been disused. The conversion to the ordinary working cycle having been effected by putting in at the top of the education pipe a valve operated by the working-gear. The working-gear of this engine seems to have had some special feature; Boulton on one of his visits to the engine remarked that it answered very well, and wished to have the gear of the Shadwell engine altered to the same arrangement. Drawings for Engines at the various London Waterworks are made available alongside those for Hull and Paris. Mint Engines Vacuum and Blowing Engines Pumping Engines The first engine to be set up in the year 1777 was at Hawkesbury Colliery, Bedworth, near Coventry. This was the largest engine that the firm had yet been engaged upon; it had a 58-inch cylinder and a stroke of 8 ft and was fitted with a steam jacket. The pump had a working barrel 14 1/2 in. diam., and the lift was 130 yds. Watt went over to supervise the erection at various times in January, February, and March, and the engine was started on March 10th. Three weeks later it was reported to be going well although not so fast as wished for. It was, however, an unfortunate engine in more respects than one. There were many defects to cure, and when the engine had been brought to a fairly satisfactory working condition there was considerable difficulty in getting the owners of the mine to sign an agreement to pay the premium demand. At last, after having thoroughly overhauled their old engine and fitted it with Watt's drop valves, a comparative trial was made in March 1779 in the presence of an arbitrator, who awarded Boulton and Watt a premium of £217 per annum, and a few months later a deed was completed for the payment of this sum. The colliery owners had thought £30 a sufficient payment. The trial had shown that the new engine was better than the old in the proportion of 411 to 96. These details are again related on pages 117 et set in James Watt and the Steam Engine, Dickinson & Jenkins, (Clarendon Press, 1927). As to the misfortunes of the engine itself, an account in April 1777 is quite a chapter of incidents. First we are told that the packing in the condenser joints gave way; this was put right, and then 'the martingale of the lower regulator broke'. After this was mended the engine was found to be 'in better order than ever, the vacuum at 27 inches and stood almost an hour at 22 after the engine stopt'. Next, 'the pump rod of the lower lift broke off by the top of the pump, and the rods below it fell down the pumps where they have fixed themselves in such a manner that the capstane rope was broke in attempting to draw them up and there they must in all probability stay untill the old engine gets down the water'. Various parts of the engine were renewed soon after, and the beam was strengthened by ties and struts; in July 1778 new valves, nozzles, and working-gear were supplied, and then in 1789, when it was moved to Exhall Colliery, it underwent extensive repairs, and seems to have had a parallel motion applied to it. This engine had the outer cylinder made in two lengths and the cylinder cover in halves flanged and bolted together. It had two air-pumps. On his visits to Scotland in 1776 Watt arranged to put up an engine with a 44-inch cylinder for Peter Colevile at Torryburn, Fifeshire (three miles from Dunfermline). Although this engine was not set to work before January 1778, the drawings, or some of them, had been prepared before the end of 1776, so that in respect of design it takes precedence over any engine erected in Cornwall. Cornish Mines The first order received from Cornwall was for a 52-inch cylinder engine for Tingtang mine, of which Jonathan Hornblower the elder was the engineer, but, as mentioned above, the first Watt engine actually erected in that county was the Wheal Busy engine, a 30-inch cylinder. Except in respect of dimensions the construction of Tingtang engine followed the designs of Colevile's, an engine which had been ordered earlier but was not set to work until January 1778; but the Wheal Busy engine embodied additional improvements, described by Watt: 'Chacewater nozzle is the most complete thing of that kind we have hitherto made and I expect will answer very well.' The cylinders and other castings for both these engines were ready at Bersham early in May 1777, but when it came to shipping them it was found that the hatches of the vessel were too small to pass the Tingtang cylinder. Thus the Wheal Busy goods were dispatched first, much to the annoyance of Watt. The erection of the Wheal Busy engine was confided to Thomas Dudley, a man who had been sent from Cornwall to Birmingham and Bersham to press forward the delivery of the materials, and to receive a course of instruction, but Watt went down to supervise the completion of the erection of the engine. Upon his arrival in Cornwall in August 1777 he found 'Wheal Busy in considerable forwardness', and that 'what ironwork had been made there is little inferior to our own, if any'. In the same letter he presses for the dispatch of the Tingtang materials, and says that all the world is agape to see the performance of Wheal Busy. The engine was soon set going, and the reports on the performance are very good. 'WL spirit goes on very well. It has forked the water in the engine shaft'. 'The Spirit goes better and better, working well with 1/2 inch of steam.' Like Tingtang this engine had an inner and an outer cylinder, with valves at the bottom, and the eduction pipe was enclosed in a long cylindrical casing. Over 500 Drawings are reproduced here reflecting the importance of Boulton and Watt's activity in Cornwall. These drawings relate to 57 different engines. This project provides an opportunity for a fresh look at the substance and impact of the Industrial Revolution and suggests the potential of much fruitful interdisciplinary work between economic historians, mechanical engineers and historians of science. Each part of this project has a clear theme and unity. Libraries can acquire the project part by part confident that each area has clear research and teaching potential. Sterling Price: £390 - US Dollar Price: $600 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 6 of our project Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History covering the Boulton and Watt Archive and Matthew Boulton Papers from the Birmingham Central Library concentrates on the Notebooks and Papers of James Watt and family from the 16 boxes of material in Muirhead II. James Watt was born at Greenock in January 1736 and began work in Glasgow at the age of 18. His father was a builder, contractor, instrument-maker, ship owner and merchant. In 1755 the young Watt spent a year in London learning how to make precision mathematical instruments. Two years later he opened a shop in Glasgow and by 1759 had entered into partnership with John Craig. He became involved in canal construction and made various journeys to London on canal business. Watt, of course, is famous for his pioneering work on steam power and his steam engine became known as "the work-horse of the Industrial Revolution". After repairing a Newcomen engine model in 1763 belonging to the College of Glasgow his work on the separate condenser steam-engine started in earnest around 1765. Before he moved to Birmingham, Watt's circle of friends and peers included Joseph Black (who described latent heat) and Adam Smith. Watt, according to his Memoir of Boulton written in Glasgow in September 1809, first visited Soho Works in Birmingham in 1767. He was introduced to Dr William Small and his partner Mr Fothergill who then showed him round the works. In 1768 he was again at Soho, on his return from London where he had been taking the necessary steps to obtain a patent for the improved steam engine. On this visit he was introduced to Matthew Boulton who had been absent on the previous occasion. Watt records: "I had much conversation with Mr Boulton ... On my part I explained to him my invention of the Steam Engine and several other schemes of which my head was then full, in the success of which he expressed a friendly interest. My stay at Birmingham at that time was short, but I afterwards kept up a correspondence with Mr Boulton through our mutual friend Dr Small." In 1774 Boulton took over Roebuck's share in the patent of Watt's invention. Watt moved to Birmingham, details of the journey are recorded in one of his notebooks, and continued his experimental work on the engine with great success. He quickly became an active member of the Lunar Society. The patent was extended for 25 years from 1775 and a partnership between Boulton and Watt was concluded for a similar term. The material in Part 6 is a rich source for all branches of Watt's family. Family correspondence, especially letters to and from his second wife, Ann Watt, and his son, James Watt jnr, c1772-1806, furnish a wealth of detail on business matters, political affairs, social gossip and the responsibilities of landed estates. Watt's confrontation with and victory over the Hornblowers; frequent news of new customers for Watt's Steam Engine; deliberations at government level over the Tax on Pig Iron, the need for Peace and Stability - crucial to the requirements of Trade and Manufacturing; the events of the French Revolution; and the pros and cons of the Albion Mill enterprise all loom large in a succession of long well written accounts. In a letter of 25 April 1806, Henry Brougham
writes to James Watt concerning the Tax on Pig Iron: In a letter from Chiswell Street, dated
26 May 1787, James Watt writes: Later the same year Watt writes to his wife
on August 30: On September 5 he adds: Ann Watt's business acumen is displayed
at the start of her letter from Heathfield of 16 April 1792: I received on Saturday three small vials
of perfumes which I suppose you sent. If you have time try to get
a pair of bell handles. I am told there are some pretty light ones
of Tunbridge ware which I think cannot be very dear. You say nothing
of Mrs Matthews. I hope she is getting better of her lameness. By
this time you have got an addition to your party. Miss B I suppose
arrived on Saturday with Mr Wheatley's family. I will be obliged
if you will send me the proportions of cossal varnish and oyl of
tarpins that make it lay on easily on wood as what you mixt is nearly
done and I want to varnish the painted tables. I am very uneasy
at not hearing from Glasgow. I have not heard since my father's
return except from Mr Miller who says nothing of them. Mrs Short
is very much indisposed. Jessy writes me she and Gregory are well
and sends their duty. We have very unpleasant weather, high East
and N East winds and the air extremely cold. Compliments to Mrs
M and other friends, A letter of January 19 & 20, 1792 from
Ann Watt to James Watt is typical of the frequent exchanges between
Heathfield and London. She writes with a judicious mixture of gossip,
news of friends, a couple of business matters, and a shopping list
of items best acquired in London, not forgetting the carpet, of
course! The Carpet should be 5 yards by 4.5 yards. If you could get the under written articles
without much trouble the purchases would be better than we could
get them here: This is a superb source for social historians of the period. So much of this material has never been used by scholars before. Here we have several generations of an important family discussing trade, economics, politics, social affairs with much additional comment on health and medicine, travel, household goods, carpets and furnishings, treeplanting and the family estates. There is much material concerning Greenock and the merchant activities of James Watt's father in Boxes 1-3. Box 4 contains many important letters between James Watt and his second wife, Ann Watt. They cover both business and family matters, including Albion Mill, the Copper Trade, the Cornish Miners, the bleaching process, Hornblower, Watt's activities in London and Cornwall. Later boxes contain significant correspondence between Ann Watt and James Watt jnr. Letters from John Smeaton to Boulton and Watt cover Trials of the Condenser for an engine, the Byker Engine and the efficiency of the Newcastle Engine in the important years 1778-1779. They have important evidence on the relative merits of the Boulton and Watt engines compared to the Newcomen engine. John Smeaton's first enquiry is dated 5 January 1778. A month later a 7 page letter follows up Boulton and Watt's reply. Than a 3 page letter from Smeaton dated 30 March 1778 politely turns down Boulton and Watt's offer of employment as an Engine Erector on their behalf. (Smeaton suggests he would have been tempted if he had just been setting out on his career, rather than well established and almost in his twilight years). On the matter of the Trial concerning the
merit and efficiency of the Boulton and Watt Engine, John Smeaton,
in a copy of his letter to Mr Saint concludes as follows: In another letter Smeaton recommends everyone
choose the Boulton & Watt model: The following two examples are characteristic
of James Watt's letters to his wife. The first one is dated London,
24 October 1787: The second example is a letter from James
Watt in Cornwall to his wife dated Truro, 22 September 1792 (See
MII/4/4/42): The French have certainly made themselves odious in the eyes of all Europe, and I hope the combined armies will soon prove them as impotent as they are cruel. If they murder their King and Queen I doubt not that Britain will declare against them, and that their country will be desolated, though Cooper had the powers of a black angel he cannot whiten them, nor vindicate them to men of common honesty - I have another letter from James. He was to leave Paris last Sunday to go to Nantes, he had not received my letter. He says that the Duke of Bbn. will soon be overcome, that all is quiet and that they were going on very orderly in choosing the Members of their Convention (who I hope and expect will not sit long in Paris). He says that the elder of the young Deleserts is in London as an aristocrate proscribed but that he seldom visits the family as his sentiments and theirs differ. I have not the same opinion of his moral principles as you have; but I have taken care not to leave you or anybody else in his power and when I come home shall make that matter still clearer, as my most earnest wish is to keep peace, not only while I live but after my death, so you must not worry on that account. My headaches are better, but the weather is horrible; wind and heavy rain, though not very cold, Mr B is pretty and sends his compliments. Please thank your father for his kind remembrance and present him my grateful respects, remember me to all friends, accept my love and give it to the Children, let you next be to Heathfield. I remain dear Annie, P.S. Box 9 also includes 4 Bundles of personal letters from Ann Watt to James Watt, 1779-1796. (see extracts mentioned elsewhere in this text). Further papers relate to Iron Works in the 1790s, James Watt's property and estates, Papers and Accounts of the Soho Foundry for the period 1778-1811, Papers concerning John Marr - an engineer in the Army married to a cousin of James Watt, Letters between James Watt and James Watt jnr, J Woodward and J Mosley, and a small amount of material relating to the iron trade and blast furnaces. See Boxes 5, 7, 8 and 10-15. Box 6 contains a series of important Legal Documents including the original Assignment of the property of an Invention concerning Fire Engines, 22 April 1779, Agreements between Boulton and Watt, Articles of Co-Partnership of Boulton, Watt and Co. dated 4 July 1801, similar Articles dated 4 July 1810, and a Deed of Dissolution of the Co-Partnership of Boulton and Watt dated 21 October 1840. On the subject of the French Revolution,
Ann Watt writes to her husband on 9 May 1792: The following two extracts relate to the
family's Welsh estates and the discussions of father and son on
this subject. James Watt is still very involved in all decision
making but his son manages affairs on a day to day basis. On 27
October 1805 Mr J Crummer writes to James Watt: The Sheep Stealer made his escape on the Road to Brecon ... his Stock and Crops will be sold the beginning of next Month, I will go from here tomorrow ... to get the Possession of the Farm you desire will have every attention in my power ..." The estates acquired by James Watt in Wales included numerous farms in two areas, one along the River Wye from Doldowlod, near Rhayader, the other around Gladestry near old and new Radnor (now in Powys). Much correspondence deals with the administration of existing estates and also the consideration of further acquisitions. Watt was assisted in these acquisitions by James Davies of Moorcourt, Herefordshire, and by James Crummer, his agent for the estates. The following table shows the considerable list of properties purchased between 1798 and 1804. As the years went by these estates clearly took up quite a large proportion of James Watt jnr's time. Gladestry area: Gladestry estates (1798) including Stonehouse Farm, Llanacydy Farm, Yraber Farm and Pant Glas Farm Hergest estate (1802) Great and Little Bedland farms (1806) Birchope Manor: (1807) Burlingjob & Ploughfield Kinnerton (1808) Hanter Farm Doldowlod area Doldowlod (1803): Ystrad Penna, Penrand Pren, Errw Vawr, Clyn Glyb, Twcwtta, Pengarreg. (1804) A large number of other Welsh farms, many near Llanwrthwl, were purchased by Watt, c1812-1813. On Tuesday 7 January 1807 we find James
Watt jnr writing to James Watt with a Memorandum to write to Mr
Crummer: He has a large farm called Ty Mawr upon the right of the road from Newbridge to Bryn yoie which I believe adjoins the latter, but this is out of the question; at least at present. Please to remark to Mr Crummer that you hope Welsh has completed the clearing and draining of the only part of the Calfs piece or new upper orchard at Doldowlod, as you intend that for a nursery another year. I should think a good liming would be of much service in neutralizing the vegetable matter it contains. I left directions with Welsh, to make his drains at least six feet deep; and it should be seen that he has followed them. Mr Crummer should as be apprized that the part of this orchard unoccupied by the former plants, seems the most proper situation for the plants now coming from Scotland; although it lies higher than the other, it seems in general to have a drier bottom and is probably in better heart, as Welsh had manured it well for his potatoes last year. Should this not taken them all, the remainder may go to the enclosed orchard or garden, at Ystrad, which must in that case be rendered more secure against sheep than it now is, by rebuilding the wall where it has given way and coping it with bushes. If Roberts has been detached to Badlands or Stonehouse he must return to superintend this planting, as soon as the trees arrive. Mr Crummer should also urge Gallieri to compleat the plans of Ystrad and Badland homesteads, that he may bring them with him when he comes here. Powel of Carregenvole should be urged to get on with the fencing of the wood at Errow Mawr; and if he can be prevailed upon to do anything towards draining and fencing off the woods on his own farm, so much the better. At all events an agreement must be made with him not to turn any cattle or sheep into his Wood No: 5, which should be sewn with acorns and etc this spring. If Mr Crummer thinks it necessary to fence off the orchard last planted at Carregenvole, he will give directions to that purport. I propose dining with you today and remain
Dear father This microform edition enables the scholar to examine closely the impact of Watt's invention, study his business and personal life, his father's merchant business, the role of his son, James Watt jnr, in continuing the Boulton and Watt business from the 1790s onwards, Watt's role as landowner, social issues, and see clearly the ties between business, industry and scientific inventions. Sterling Price: £2700 - US Dollar Price: $4000 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 7 of our microfilm project Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, covering the Boulton and Watt Archive and Matthew Boulton Papers from Birmingham Central Library, provides further vital subject material from the Matthew Boulton Papers (Boxes 308-310, 312, 322, 325-328, 332, 337, 343, 358-360, 362, 363, 367-369 and 375). This comprises correspondence with key figures: Samuel Garbett (Chairman of the Birmingham
Commercial Committee) "These papers provide a unique opportunity
to study numerous facets of late 18th century industry
and industrial society. It is not only the scale and relative completeness
of the archive that makes it outstanding but the fact that, by virtue
of their stature, Boulton and Watt corresponded with very many of
the major figures in late 18th century scientific and
industrial society both in Britain and overseas. These papers are
a unique source for studies of steam power." The following 9 extracts offer a flavour of the rich detail in these letters: 26 July 1784 31 August 1786 28 March 1792 11 September 1792 11 May 1778 4 January 1792 6 July 1789 1 May 1776 One final extract brings news from Cornwall and information on Committee business. Further extracts can be found in the Detailed Listing. October 1785 Each part of this project has a clear theme and unity. Libraries can acquire the project part by part confident that each area has clear research and teaching potential. Sterling Price: £1600 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 8 of our microfilm project Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, covering the Boulton and Watt Archive and Matthew Boulton Papers from Birmingham Central Library, provides complete coverage of: a) Muirhead III - 4 boxes of manuscript
material and one portfolio of maps and plans. Both focus on the Notebooks and Papers of James Watt and family. This part completes our coverage of Muirhead. Muirhead III is small (just 2 reels) and consists of Legal Agreements, Leases and Mortgages; Waste Books, Ledgers and Journeymen's Books of James Watt, 1757-1771; important Architectural plans and papers concerning Heathfield House and grounds in Handsworth, 1789-1795 (Heathfield House was built for James Watt in 1790), including some watercolour drawings and plans thought to be by the architect Samuel Wyatt - as well as detail on the exterior, there is much fascinating material on the internal layout of the house, different designs and ideas - a valuable source for social historians. Other Papers include drawings and plans for Badland farm in Radnorshire, plans for Badland House, a sketch of a house proposed to be built at Doldowlod, and a Book of designs for gates, plus a final portfolio containing Maps and Plans, c1728-1756, probably by the surveyor John Watt (uncle of James Watt). Muirhead IV is much bigger (26 reels) and contains some excellent correspondence. Boxes 1-10 are arranged A-Z alphabetically. These are letters received by James Watt (or his son), c1772-1818... for instance: Thomas Beddoes (29 letters) There is an emphasis in this material towards the later years of James Watt's life, especially 1795-1818, when his son James Watt, jnr, was playing a major role in the various business concerns, social duties and administration of Welsh estates. Boxes 11-19 cover Family Correspondence and Papers. Much of this material (4 boxes) is a strong sequence of letters from James Watt to his son James Watt, jnr. This covers the period 1784-1818. There are letters from James Watt to his wife Ann Watt (a folder from 1780) and correspondence after James Watt's death - a sequence of letters from James Watt, jnr to Ann Watt, 1819-1820. Other family papers cover James Watt of Greenock, Thomas Watt (mathematician at Crawfordsdyk), John Watt, senior and John Watt, junior. The final two boxes of Muirhead IV are Canal Papers, mainly devoted to the construction of the Monkland Canal. These papers relate to the period 1770-1772 when James Watt worked as a canal surveyor and engineer on various Scottish canals. There are maps, plans, calculations, notes on dimensions, working papers and accounts relating to this work. Without doubt the heart of this part of the microfilm project is the section of correspondence in Muirhead IV. The broad cross-section of letters received, with rich detail on business affairs and social life at the end of the eighteenth century/first two decades of the nineteenth century, provide social historians with a substantial goldmine for further research. The letters from James Watt to his son are also most informative. Many of these letters, whether in the alphabetical sequence or part of the father/son exchange of news and instructions, are crammed with detail and often run to quite a number of pages. The following extracts drawn from Muirhead IV give a flavour of this correspondence: Box 16. Folder 11 of 30 Glasgow, August 21, 1803 For want of chairs we were detained at Bolton till 5 October; their coming after we left you; After that we had not more stoppages but a pleasant journey and good weather though cold these last 3 days - We came round through Gallaway but made no new observations. I shall thank you to enquire at Mr Woodward's if Messrs Cheese and Davies have drawn from him the purchase money for Ystrad Penner, and if they have not to write to them and quicken their motions about that conveyance, and also about the payment of the Ystrad Mortgage, as mentioned in the letter I left for you at Heathfield. On considering the subject of the Handsworth volunteers if appears to me that there will be no use in furnishing more than the law prescribes, and that after seeing from the lists taken by the Constables what that number is, you should pick out from those you have enrolled the most likely men and those who can best be spared taking the unmarried men in preference to those who have families - I shall probably be called upon for subscriptions for the same purpose in Radnor and Breconshire, in which case you will please write to Mr Crummer; that I shall be willing to come forward with other Landowners in proportion to my rents in the rural parishes, or counties, but that my subscriptions elsewhere will prevent my going further - As I shall write again in a few days I add no more at present. Mrs Watt and Miss A Hamilton join me
in best wishes to you and friends at Soho... Box 17. Folder 26 of 30 Heathfield July 27, 1817 I fully thought Madame Lavoisier had been gone when on Thursday she called here in company with Mrs (Tirtius)? Galton and Miss Adele Galton and consequently we found ourselves obliged to ask her and friends to dinner a ceremony we wished to have avoided on account of the very bad state of Mrs Watt's neck; the invitation was accepted for Saturday accordingly yesterday we had the Countess Mrs Gurtians (?) and Miss Adele Galton, Dr de Lys, Mr Boulton, Mr Underwood an acquaintance of yours, who is going to Scotland with the comtesse and Mr Z Walker, and the evening passed off very well. Today the Countess sets out for Scotland, she would have been gone sooner but her nephew Mr Poulzé was seized with a fit of the gout and kept constantly growling about ce trieste voyage, he now returns to London in consequence of Madame's rencontre with Mr Underwood who will answer the purpose much better. Madame Boulton after having promised chose to shirk and in consequence Miss B followed her example. After the company were gone Mrs Watt had the plaster taken off, we found her neck much blistered and inflamed, but after dressing with some mild ointment she became easier which continues and I hope it will be enough by the end of the week to permit her to travel. Until the pain caused by the plaster abates we cannot judge whether it has done much good to the original complaint, but at any rate it has been a rough medicine. We propose to have a plan of the Birmingham Canal engraved, the above ground survey is finished but the situation of the several strata of coals etc. should be laid down, do you think Mr Farey would be a proper person for that purpose? There is to be a committee meeting on Friday and I would like to know your sentiments on that head by that time (say on Thursday). I copy this upon two sixth parts of a sheet of tissue paper bought at Cross and Parsons in the Strand. Cost 14d per quire. I beg to be remembered to all friends
and remain Dear James, Yours affectionately If James Watt's tone seems sometimes to be slightly grumpy, this may be due to the difficulties of journeys, ill-health and concerns about his or his wife latest ailment. He never quite recovered from Gregory's early death in 1804. The letters do provide a good overview of business management, social responsibilities (such as poor relief, duties as sheriff, policing and management of the Welsh estates), Watt's contacts in the business and scientific community. One can also study the transition as Watt jnr and Matthew Robinson Boulton take over a leading role in the continuing operation of both the Soho Works and Soho Foundry, and their fathers assume a slightly less prominent role in the Boulton and Watt concerns. By 1805 the business was conducted most efficiently and in terms of organisation and structure which can be considered modern by the standards of factories as late as the 1920s. Here are two final extracts. Thomas Barnes of Walker Colliery (in a letter dated February 11, 1800 - see Muirhead IV, Folder B [2 of 8] explains how domestic misfortunes have prevented his visit to Soho and then writes: "It remains therefore Sir for me to proceed to such business by Letter, as I should have endeavoured to transact with you personally and as in the present times money is the first consideration I have sent by yesterday's Post addressed to Messrs. B & W least you should be from home a Bill upon Messrs. Castall Powick & Co for £1115.15.0 being the amount of the Fair Pit Engine goods and the Lawson Main Waggon Road as stated in your favour of 26' Nov. last. That this Bill should not have been paid sooner is certainly irregular, but the truth is the present Company at Walker are not Tradesmen and are therefore very liable to forget the routine of business... The Fair Pit Engine is now currently at work Night and Day and gives the most compleat satisfaction.... " On October 18, 1800 Thomas Barnes (of the Walker Colliery at Newcastle-upon-Tyne) writes again to James Watt (from the George Inn at Buxton): "Dear Sir This short time however will be of the first importance to me, and I therefore propose to begin my Journey on Saturday the 25th but from the situation of my partner who is a little too heavy for quick Travelling I shall not have the pleasure of waiting upon you before Sunday morning. From Mr Southern's favour of the 15th I am glad to find that Tyne Main Winding Engine is on your List and I am much obliged to him for the Proverb of the Sheep and Lamb but I cannot afford to be hanged for either. My wife desires to join me in wishing you every happiness that the Rookery can afford, and with best regards to Mr Southern, Mr Murdock and Mr Fishwick I remain Dear Sir, Your most Obedient and much obliged Each part of this project has a clear theme and unity. Libraries can acquire the project part by part confident that each area has clear research and teaching potential. Sterling Price: £2180 - US Dollar Price: $3500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History This part of the microfilm project covers Matthew Boulton's Soho Journals, 1776-1815 with notes on Accounts, Wages and Expenses; his Notebooks covering different subjects (for example: General, c1751-1808 ; Engines & Mining, c1776-1808 ;Holland, 1779 and Experiments on Carronades, 1779-1781) and his Diaries for 1766-1808. Adam Matthew Publications Home Page December 2000 Sterling Price: £940 - US Dollar Price: $1500 Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Here we cover boxes of incoming letters in their alphabetical arrangement. There are a total of 46 boxes completing the A-Z sequence of correspondents. Part 10 concentrates on the first half of the alphabet and will be accompanied by a full list and index of correspondents. This part of the project reflects the wide ranging nature of Boulton's network of contacts throughout Britain, Europe and America. There is no duplication of the Lunar Society material covered in Part 1 or the correspondence covered in Part 7 of this project. Here we reproduce the letters emanating from all Boulton's other contacts, ie: not Lunar Society members (see Part 1 for these) and not close associates (see Part 7 for these). "The revival of scholarly interest
in the Industrial Revolution, and the debates and controversy surrounding
it, should give even more prominence to the sort of archival material
embodied in the Matthew Boulton Papers." Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 11 completes our coverage of all the Engineering Drawings not already covered by Parts 3 and 5. They relate to the period when James Watt junior and Matthew Robinson Boulton had taken over the running of the businesses. Included are Engine Drawings and Portfolios covering other new ventures such as Steamboats. Sterling Price: £780 - US Dollar Price: $1250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History The key role played by Manchester and the
surrounding region in the Industrial Revolution makes it appropriate
that Series Two in this microfilm project is devoted to two important
collections of source material located at the The Samuel Oldknow Papers (English MSS 751-840) Josiah Wedgwood Correspondence (English
MSS 1101-1110) February 2000 Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History In Series Three of this microfilm project Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History we make available all the private papers of James Watt and family which were housed at Doldowlod House in Wales, until their acquisition by Birmingham Central Library in 1994. Much of this material relates closely to the collections we have already microfilmed in Series One, especially the Boulton & Watt collection, the Matthew Boulton Papers and Muirhead I-IV. The Doldowlod material fills some important gaps and provides correspondence, notebooks and other papers of paramount importance in their own right. There is excellent correspondence with the following: Aimé Argand (Swiss physician and
scientist) writes about Argand lamps made at Soho, water companies
in Paris, visits to French country houses and to see Ministers as
well as about James Watt junior's foreign tour. The overall quality and regularity of the correspondence with scientific and technological figures in England, Scotland, on the Continent of Europe and even wider afield is remarkable. This stretches far beyond members of the Lunar Society and includes important industrialists such as Samuel Whitbread, William Wilkinson, Sir Richard Arkwright, David Dale and Samuel Garbett. As Nicholas Kingsley points out in his Introduction:
There are also letters from Henry Smeathman about the abolition of slavery, trade with West Africa, the black poor in London and their possible re-settlement in Sierra Leone. A complete file of Watt's own outgoing letters, largely in press-copies (from 1779 onwards) but supplemented by original letters to his family and retained holograph drafts, are an important part of this archive. Among the earliest letters are those Watt wrote to his father from London in 1755-56 when he was serving his apprenticeship. He describes his work in detail, especially instrument making and surveying, but also gives a fascinating view of London life, with a young man's ever-present fear of naval impressment. Letters for 1774-1775 describe to his father the events following his arrival in Birmingham, see JWP 4/60. For later years, the press-copy letters form a full record of Watt's side of his many correspondences. The recipients include Dr Joseph Black, Josiah Wedgwood, Robert Muirhead, James McGrigor, Gilbert Hamilton, Captain Marr, J H de Magellan, Matthew Boulton, James Keir, William Chapman and many others. Many of Watt's original letters survive in other collections, but for some correspondents these copies will be the only sources. Although some of the copies have faded, the majority are still fresh and legible, and as exact copies, have greater textual authority than most retained copies of the period. Within Series Three the correspondence is the main focus of Parts 1 and 2. Other important sections included in Parts 2 and 3 are: Diaries, account books and memoranda books Business records: instrument making Business records: surveying Business records: steam engines Papers concerning Watt's various legal battles Business records: copying machines Family Papers of Gregory Watt and James
Watt junior James Watt junior's papers are very important
because of his central role in carrying on the Boulton & Watt
business along with Matthew Boulton's son from the late 1790s onwards.
James Watt junior joined the firm in 1794. He was responsible for
the building of the new factory (the Soho Foundry) to manufacture
engines ready for immediate sale. This was completed in 1795. James
Watt junior developed the business in various new As Nicholas Kingsley mentions, the earlier papers of the two young Watts, like their father's correspondence with R L Edgeworth and some other of his Lunar Society friends, will be of considerable interest to scholars of the history of education. These papers have already furnished much material for Eric Robinson's 'Training the Captain's of Industry' in Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969). "The importance of these papers to historians
of science, technology, industry, the economy, applied art and society
in the Industrial Revolution cannot be over-estimated." "If Dr James Hutton wishes to make a
geological map of Cornwall he writes to Watt; if Dr Priestley wishes
to have a careful observer of his experiments on gases it is to
Watt that he turns; if Berthollet wants to know of the practical
developments in chlorine bleaching he consults the man to whom he
first explained the properties of gas, James Watt..." A single paperback guide accompanies all three parts of Series Three of this microfilm project. Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 2 of this microfilm project continues
with: These documents (reproduced in Series Three of the microfilm project) were purchased from Lord Gibson-Watt, Doldowlod Hous, Llandundod Wells, Powys, in June 1994, with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Victoria and Albert Purchase Grant Fund and may other donors. They are now housed in the Archives Division of Birmingham Central Library with the shelfmark JWP (ACC 94/69). James Watt James Watt (1736-1819), surveyor, engineer, mathematical and musical instrument maker, chemist and inventor, is famous for his invention in 1765 of the separate condenser, the crucial refinement of Thomas Newcomen's steam engine. The steam engine as improved by Watt was probably the most important technological advance of the industrial revolution; with the fuel economies of the separate condenser, steam engines could operate anywhere. Later improvements included a new coupling so that the engine could work in both directions, rotative motion, and a governor for safety. By its application to water pumping, hoisting-machinery, the blast furnace, and industrial machinery Watt's engine made possible cheap coal and cheap energy, and powered spinning and weaving, breweries, flour mills, paper mills, the potteries, and many other essential industries. The authors of A History of Technology (Oxford 1958) write that "in 1750 the industrial state, as now understood, did not exist... Britain was then essentially an agricultural and mercantile nation..."a nation of shopkeepers": but by 1815 Britain, and Britain alone, was so far industrialised as to deserve the title of the workshop of the world". The technological changes and developments of those years and the resultant economic growth and social change were based on Watt's great legacy. Watt began his career in London, where he served an apprenticeship (1755-56) as an instrument maker, subsequently becoming `Mathematical instrument maker to the College of Glasgow' and opening a shop there. In later years he invented a new micrometer, a new surveying quadrant, and a copying machine, which revolutionised office practice in a way probably not to be matched until the advent of the typewriter in the late 19th century. During the early years of his work on steam, Watt also worked very successfully as a canal surveyor and engineer on various Scottish canals. In 1774, after the financial failure of his first backer, Dr John Roebuck, Watt joined Matthew Boulton at his Soho Manufactory in Birmingham, and serious exploitation of the steam engine began. Boulton & Watt designed and erected engines in Cornwall and elsewhere during the 1770s, while Watt continually worked to improve the design. A number of significant improvements where realised during the 1780s, one of the most important of which was the invention of the 'sun and planet' gearing system, which allowed the engines to produce rotative motion. Since Boulton & Watt made relatively few of the parts of which their engines were constructed until the 1790s, they preferred not to receive a one-off payment for their engines, but instead to receive a premium calculated as a percentage of the cost savings achieved by use of their engine instead of Newcomen engines producing the same amount of work; Watt invented the horse-power unit of measurement of work performed to make this calculation easier. The system was, however, unpopular with customers, and this and subsequent attempts to pirate Watt's inventions and infringe his patents led to a series of courtroom battles in the 1790s. While at Birmingham, Watt continued to keep in close touch with his scientific friends in Scotland, particularly Joseph Black and John Robison, but also found himself part of a circle of new friends devoted to improving the world's science, technology, medicine, education and commerce; this became the famous Lunar Society of Birmingham, the most eminent and informal of the provincial learned societies. In addition to Boulton and Watt, members included Dr Erasmus Darwin, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Samuel Galton junior, the chemist James Keir, Joseph Priestley, the chemist William Small, Josiah Wedgwood, and William Withering. The network of shared contacts of this influential group brought James Watt a steady correspondence of wonderfully rich letters with leading scientists and technologists across Europe; men such as Claude-Louis Berthollet, Aimé Argand, Marsiglio Landriani and J D H van Liender. The Archive The Watt papers, formerly in the possession of Lord Gibson-Watt of Doldowlod, Powys, consist of James Watt's personal papers, his extensive incoming correspondence, and bound volumes of retained copies (made on the Watt copying-press) of his outgoing letters; notebooks, journals, personal and business accounts, surveying reports, memoranda, papers relating to the Act of Parliament of 1775 which extended his original patent, patent specifications and drawings for the improvements of the 1780s, legal papers concerning court cases for infringement of his patents, and other miscellaneous papers. These are supplemented by the accounts and letter books of his father, James Watt of Greenock, merchant (1698-1782), from the 1730s to 1780s, and the papers and correspondence of his sons, James Watt junior and Gregory Watt. James junior (1769-1848) succeeded his father at Boulton & Watt from 1800 onwards and was closely involved in the development of the steamboat, turning the engine production of the Soho Foundry increasingly towards marine engines in the 1820s, 30s and 40s. In 1818, the year before his father's death, he took a lease of Aston Hall in Birmingham, and an important collection of drawings relates to the repair and furnishing of the house during the 1820s. In later life, he developed antiquarian interests, and purchased William Hamper's important local history collections relating to Aston, which also form part of the archive. Gregory Watt (1777-1804) was a talented mineralogist and geologist, who died from consumption aged 27; the archive contains a considerable amount of his juvenilia, apparently carefully preserved by his father, who was heartbroken by the early death of a favoured son. Eight trunks and boxes of the Doldowlod papers were listed in a brief bundle list by the Business Archives Council in 1987; a recent search to make sure that the archive is complete has turned up some additional material, including a further ten folders of James Watt's incoming correspondence, three of his diaries and journals, his father's accounts and much of the miscellaneous material relating to James Watt junior. Papers relating to the steam engine Of primary interest to historians of science and technology are the journals and papers relating to the steam engine. There is, for example, an original laboratory notebook [W/14] dating mainly from 1783 recording Watt's experiments on latent heat, copal varnish etc. The experiments on copal varnish are described retrospectively, but the latent heat experiments (including the famous tea kettle experiment) are recorded here as they were performed, with various revisions and pasted cancels in the notes, A folio commonplace book [C1/2] includes Watt's account of his own experiments on heat as well as notes (some from printed reports) on the experiments of Lavoisier, de la Place and Priestley. Other working papers include notes, drafts, specifications and drawings for steam engine patents and for the various court cases which arose from patent infringements. Watt himself was responsible for the specifications and drawings in patent applications; and the original parchment patents of 1781, 1782 and 1784 for improvements to the steam engine [G/12-14] include coloured drawings signed by him. A folder of uncoloured draft drawings, with annotations, is also present [C1/43]. Many of the original specifications were later copied for use in court proceedings, notably Boulton & Watt v Bull and Boulton & Watt v Hornblower and Marberly, and it is these copy drawings which are reproduced by Eric Robinson and A E Musson in James Watt and the Steam Revolution. The originals provide greater clarity and a much finer degree of detail than the reproductions. Various objections were raised to Watt's specifications, and the papers here include the autograph draft [4/31] of his answers. There is, too, the manuscript of Professor John Robison's 'Narrative of Mr Watt's Invention of the Improved Engine', prepared for the 1796 Hornblower and Marberly piracy case, in which Robison gives a personal account of Watt's early experiments on steam [3/36]. The early engines were simple albeit massive machines, built on site with local labour and only a supervising engineer from Boulton & Watt. To guide the workmen, Boulton & Watt produced a pamphlet, entitled Directions for Erecting and Working the newly invented Steam Engine, 1780. A copy among Watt's papers is copiously annotated with manuscript instructions referring to a particular engine that was being erected in 1788 [W/2]. This is just one example of the many papers, estimates and letters concerning steam engines at work. James Watt's correspondence Watt's extensive correspondence is the rich core of the archive, documenting all aspects of his life and work and providing considerable information about his contemporaries. There are more than 4,500 incoming letters, and they are wide-ranging and full to a remarkable degree; as Robinson and Musson have written, "If Dr James Hutton wishes to make a geological map of Cornwall he writes to Watt; if Dr Priestley wishes to have a careful observer of his experiments on gases it is to Watt that he turns; if Berthollet wants to know of the practical developments in chlorine bleaching he consults the man to whom he first explained the properties of gas, James Watt...". The letters are a record of scientific work-in-progress not just in steam but in many other areas. They offer an intimate picture of the close collaboration between scientists and industrialists in the second half of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries, and reveal how information and views were exchanged. Of particular note are the letters from Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Beddoes, Joseph Black, Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, Humphry Davy, Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Samuel Galton junior, Thomas Henry, James Hutton, William Irvine, James Keir, James Lind, Joseph Priestley, John Rennie, John Robison, John Roebuck, William Small, Jonathan Stokes, Thomas Telford, James Watt's father and sons, Josiah Wedgwood and William Withering. The overall quality and regularity of the correspondence with scientific and technological figures is exceptionally high. To give just a few examples: Priestley writes about phlogiston, inflammable air, the Lunar Society, and of his losses in the riots (the archive also contains a 1782 manuscript catalogue of his library [C1/411]). Humphry Davy describes his galvanic experiments, including a particularly choice letter on the battery, 1801; Telford writes of his surveying and his designs for London Bridge; Rennie writes to criticise Telford's bridge plans; Dr Beddoes and Darwin write of the medical uses of gases (a particularly full series of letters revealing much about the practical implementation of Beddoes' ideas); and Boulton on all aspects of the Boulton & Watt business. Berthollet sends telling eye-witness accounts of French work on the theory of dyeing and bleaching, the problems of establishing the new chemical nomenclature of the 1780s, and the difficulties of life during the Revolution; Josiah Wedgwood writes about Cornwall (where he and Watt both had business interests), china stone and clay, furnace pipes and the firing details for different porcelains, the slave trade, trade and tariffs, and the political influence of the Chamber of Manufacturers. Watt's letters to Wedgwood and Black were returned to James Watt junior in the 19th century, so both sides of the important correspondences are present in the original, as well as in the retained copies. These are sources that will illuminate areas of great current concern to historians of science, many of whom are now far more interested in the relations between science and experimental and industrial practice than was the case when Robinson and Musson published selections of the letters from the archive c1970. Moving into the realm of business history and the difficult transfer between invention and realisation, the letters from Aimé Argand about the Argand lamp are likely to be a rich source for any study of the financing of innovation in the eighteenth century, as will be Watt's correspondence with Roebuck, Small and Boulton about the financing of the steam engine. The archive includes a remarkably compete file on Watt's own outgoing letters, largely in press-copies (from 1779 onwards) but supplemented by original letters to his family and retained holograph drafts. Among the earliest letters are those Watt wrote to his father from London in 1755-56 when he was serving his apprenticeship. He describes his work in detail, but also gives a fascinating view of London life, with a young man's ever-present fear of naval impressment. For later years, the press-copy letters form a full record of Watt's side of his many correspondences. Many of Watt's original letters survive in other collections, but for some correspondence these copies will be the only sources, Although some of the copies have faded, the majority are still fresh and legible, and as exact copies, have greater textual authority than most retained copies of the period. James Watt, junior As a young man, James Watt junior was sent to Geneva to study languages and natural philosophy under the eye of the scientist J A de Luc (himself a regular correspondent of Watt's). He went on to study in Germany, returned to England in 1788 for two years of practical experience in the counting house of Messrs Taylor and Maxwell of Manchester, and then travelled on the Continent from 1790-94. His early sympathies with the French Revolution led to disillusion with the Terror, and he fled, possibly in some danger, from France to Italy, before returning to England once again. His letters to his father during these years form a fascinating series [W/6, 8; 4/9; C1/33], and like his brother's notebooks, offer an unusual degree of insight into the life of the countries he visited. He joined the firm of Boulton & Watt in 1794, and with Matthew Boulton's son, M R Boulton, was soon playing an important role in the business. The engine patent was to expire in 1800, and since royalty income from the old business of erecting engines on licence was coming to and end, the younger Watt planned and built a new factory (the Soho Foundry) to manufacture engines for sale outright. All the expansion and new expenditure at Soho made his father rather nervous, but within a few years he clearly had the business well in hand. One of the new directions in which he led the firm was steam navigation, and his correspondence includes fine letters from the American steamboat pioneer, Robert Fulton [C1/24; 6/54]. Like his father, he used the Watt copying press to keep a record of his own outgoing correspondence, and there are about a thousand pressed copies of his letters in the archive [LB/7-8; 6/61-65]. Also among his papers are a number of the printed biographical accounts that appeared on James Watt's death, often annotated with corrections, and the autograph manuscript of his anonymous memoir of his father for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Among the miscellaneous papers are plans and drawings for the Watt Institute and Library at Greenock of 1835-37 and the Watt memorial chapel at Handsworth church, 1825-29. Gregory Watt Watt's only son by his second marriage, Gregory, was a young man of great promise, whose translations from the classics won a handsome shelf of school prize-books. At Glasgow College he was a fellow-student of the poet, Thomas Campbell, who dedicated to him a memorial volume of verse in 1794. Like his sister before him, Gregory fell ill of consumption, giving an added urgency to his fathers work on pneumatic apparatus for his medical friends in the Lunar Society. For his health Gregory lodged for a time in Cornwall with Humphry Davy's mother, and this resulted in young Davy's introduction to Dr Thomas Beddoes and his first employment in the world of science. There are two fine letters from Davy to James Watt reporting on Gregory's health and his own galvanic experiments [C1/21; 6/33]. Gregory's professional interests turned to mineralogy, and he travelled extensively in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany in 1801-04, keeping journals full of attractive sketches and writing long and interesting letters to his father and brother. James Watt never really recovered from the tragedy of Gregory's early death in 1804, and for the rest of his life he kept his son's schoolbooks by him in a trunk in his garret workshop. Gregory's only publication was a paper on basalt. The earlier papers of the two young Watts, like their father's correspondence with R L Edgeworth and some other of his Lunar Society friends, are of considerable interest for the history of education, and have already furnished material for Eric Robinson's 'Training the Captain's of Industry' in Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969). Relationship to the other collections at Birmingham The Archive Division of Birmingham Central Library already held three major archives and a number of smaller collections which have a close relationship to the contents of these papers, and provide the necessary background against which they should be understood, The Boulton & Watt collection, which is owned by the City Council, is the archive of the steam engine partnership from its formation in 1774 until its closure in the 1890s. It includes a wealth of documentation relating to the crucial early years of the business, when James Watt and later his son were directly involved. About 550 volumes of letter books, account books, order books etc. include a sequence of letter books beginning in 1774 which is continuous until the mid 19th century; as in this archive, they comprise retained press copies from the invention to the copying process in 1780. Although there are no order books as such before the 1790s, it has been possible to reconstruct a 'Catalogue of old engines', listing the recorded commissions, and among the 29,000 engine drawings there are surviving designs for almost every one of these. The archive also contains a substantial quantity of incoming correspondence, mostly letters enquiring about orders for engines, and letters from the manufacturers about progress and problems in making the various parts from which the engines were assembled on site. Much of this material has been made available on microfilm by Adam Matthew Publications. The second major collection is the Muirhead papers, which provide the strongest link with this archive. The Muirhead Papers are also available in their entirety on microfilm from Adam Matthew Publications. J P Muirhead, author of a three-volume work on James Watt published in 1854, was one of James Watt junior's executors, and seems to have had both the records that went to Doldowlod and the Muirhead papers at Birmingham in his possession when that work was compiled. A schedule of records in the possession of Watt's solicitors at the time of his death in 1848 certainly includes material now in both collections. In 1870, following a legal case, Muirhead returned to Doldowlod the records that remained there until their purchase in 1994. The other material descended in his family, and was presented to the City Council in 1932. The Muirhead papers show clear evidence of this common ancestry, and contain material in almost all the categories present in the Doldowlod archive. For example, James Watt of Greenock's account and letter books were at Doldowlod, but his vouchers, 1776-79 at Birmingham, and James Watt the engineer's journal-notebooks, 1776-85 are in the Doldowlod collection but others covering the period before and after (1768-74, 1786-89) are in the Muirhead papers. The records of his Glasgow instrument-making business are likewise split fairly evenly between the two collections. In other areas, the collections are more complimentary, suggesting a more rational basis for their division; thus although there was a good deal of Watt's correspondence about canals at Doldowlod, almost all the canal surveys, accounts and papers were at Birmingham. Papers about property (both Heathfield and in Wales) were mainly at Birmingham too, but the overwhelming majority of Watt's correspondence was at Doldowlod (the main groups in the Muirhead papers are letters from the second Mrs Watts, 1779-96 and letters from Priestley, 1778-85). James Watt junior's notebooks, 1796-1835 were held at Birmingham, as were many of his letters from his father, mother and brother Gregory. Finally, the collection at Birmingham explains some absences from the records that were held at Doldowlod; for example the papers of James Watt's elder brother John, who drowned at sea in 1763, and his second wife, Ann, are in the Muirhead papers and so was the correspondence which explains how James Watt junior came by Hamper's collections for the parish of Aston. The third collection of great significance at Birmingham Central Library is the Matthew Boulton papers, placed there on deposit by the Matthew Boulton Trust in 1973, and formerly in the library of the Assay Office in Birmingham. Again, these are being filmed and made available on microfilm by Adam Matthew Publications. With over 200 volumes of records of the Soho Mint and Manufactory, Matthew Boulton's letter books, about 30,000 personal letters received by him in connection with all his wide-ranging business and personal interests (including over 650 from Watt), and the estate and household papers of both Boulton and his son, this is a collection of at least equal importance to the records from Doldowlod and on a considerably larger scale. Its significance in this context, however, is that through the networking of the Lunar Society, Boulton and Watt knew and corresponded with many of the same people, often about the same issues. Quite apart from the other members of the Lunar Society itself (Priestley, Darwin, Keir, Small, Wedgwood, etc), there are letters from figures like Aimé Argand, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr Thomas Beddoes, C L Berthollet, Joseph Black, William Chapman, Samuel Garbett, William Hollins, Marsiglio Landriani, J D H van Liender, Robert Mylne, Baron Reden, John Rennie, John Robison, John Roebuck, Sir John Sinclair, Charles Startin, P De Virley, and Zaccheus Walker who appear prominently in the Doldowlod papers. Having the letters from Doldowlod and those in the Matthew Boulton papers on one site thus affords the opportunity for fascinating cross referencing of the opinions of their correspondents, and reveals much about the character of Boulton and Watt themselves, it can also elucidate many of the obscure asides that appear in the letters. Brought alongside the three collections described above and the Doldowlod papers complete an unequalled resource for economic and scientific historians of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Publications based on the collection J P Muirhead's biography, The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, 3 volumes, 1854, prints a number of the letters, while Eric Robinson and A E Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution (London, 1969) and Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie, Partners in Science provide a more modern selection; Partners in Science specifically printing all the surviving letters between Watt and Black and Robison. H W Dickinson's biography of James Watt (1936) and the collection of essays by Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution also draw on material from Doldowlod. A catalogue of the Bullock and Bridgens drawings for furniture etc. was compiled in 1982 by Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, and supplied the material for an article in Furniture History. Despite the efforts of the Gibson-Watts to accommodate various scholars over the years, while the material was at Doldowlod it was never very accessible and large parts of the collection have never received the sustained attention of scholars. Hamper's collections for the history of Aston, although very different in focus from the rest of the collection, were completely unexplored, and include much that is of significance to local historians in Birmingham. Acknowledgements The detailed listing which follows is based upon the brief survey drawn up by the Business Archives Council in 1987 for Lord Gibson-Watt, and is expanded with the assistance of notes and transcripts made at Doldowlod by Jennifer Tann, Julian Gibson-Watt, Ted Hofmann and Joan Winterkorn. The foregoing introduction is quoted largely from reports on the collection by Bernard Quaritch Ltd and Robert Fox. The biographical references at the end of the collection are quoted from the Concise Dictionary of National Biography or abbreviated from biographies in the catalogue of the1966 Lunar Society exhibition or standard works of reference. Thanks are due first to Lord Gibson-Watt for allowing access to the collection, and to all those named above who have contributed to the catalogue. Eric Robinson, Neil Cossons, Glenys Wild and Maggie Hamber have all helped by providing information or other assistance with the assessment of the collection. Our thanks are also due to Nicholas Kingsley, City Archivist, Birmingham Library Services and all the staff in the Archives Division under Sïan Roberts who have helped with this microfilm project. (The above text is adapted from an introductory text written by Nicholas Kingsley, City Archivist, Birmingham Library Services in March 1993, revised in 1998). April 1999 Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Industrial Revolution:
A Documentary History Part 3 has a strong focus on James Watt's son, James Watt junior. This is particularly important for the 1790s when Watt was training his son to take over the reins of all aspects of the Boulton & Watt empire along with Boulton's son, Matthew Robinson Boulton. James Watt junior officially joined the firm of Boulton & Watt in 1794. He was responsible for the building of the new factory (the Soho Foundry) to manufacture engines ready for immediate sale. This was completed in 1795. James Watt junior developed the business in various new directions, in particular steam navigation, after 1800. There are excellent letters in the collection both to and from the American steamboat pioneer, Robert Fulton. A new focus became necessary with the expiry of the engine patent in 1800 and dwindling royalty revenue from the old business of erecting engines on licence. This section of the microfilm project continues from Part 2 with the following categories of material: James Watt, junior (1769-1848): Personal
Correspondence (Reel 41) This material will be of strong interest to all those studying the inter-relationship between science and industry. It also offers important insights into how Watt adapted to the changing circumstances of the 1820s and 1830s to build upon his father's success. Sterling Price: £1950 - US Dollar Price: $3125 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page International
Women's Suffrage "It is no wonder that the women
of New South Wales have the vote, since they have Miss Scott to
speak for them." Rose Scott (1847-1925) was instrumental in gaining the vote for women in New South Wales and was an important campaigner for suffrage, feminist and gender related issues throughout Australia. She was also a noteworthy international correspondent and her papers feature exchanges with fellow suffragists in Germany, Sweden and America, including some lengthy letters from Carrie Chapman Catt of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance. This microfilm edition offers all of her letters regarding Womanhood Suffrage, 1877-1920 (ML MSS 38, Section CY 1008-1010), from the vast collection of Scott papers at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. For those interested in world history and comparative women's studies, it offers an unusual opportunity to explore the experiences of women in different societies as they struggled for similar objectives. The fact that the women of New South Wales gained the vote over 10 years ahead of their sisters in Britain and America raises interesting questions regarding their strategy and tactics. Rose Scott was born at Glendon, near Singleton, in New South Wales, on 8 October 1847. While her brothers were sent away to boarding school, Rose and Augusta, her sister, were educated by their mother at home. Rose gained some measure of financial independence when her father died in 1879, leaving her an inheritance of A$500 per annum. But she was also given sole responsibility for the care of her mother. Then, tragically, Augusta died in 1880, and Rose adopted her sister's 2-year-old son and relocated to Sydney. Despite the substantial responsibilities of caring for her mother and her adopted son, Rose became a prominent social figure in Sydney. She held a regular Friday salon at her home that attracted figures from the worlds of literature, education, government, law, and philanthropy. Her first move towards feminism was prompted by the plight of Katharina in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and she was much influenced by John Stuart Mill's essay on The Subjugation of Women (1861). As a result she helped to found the Women's Literary Society in 1889, which brought her into contact with many more writers, journalists and feminists. This network was to prove crucial in her campaign for women's suffrage in New South Wales. The papers filmed here start with a cluster of correspondence concerning her foundation of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales in 1891. It is interesting to see how certain key figures were approached to provide peer support for the League. The careful positioning of the League in the media, and its relationship to socialist groups can also be explored. Described as "the Rose without the thorn", Rose Scott used careful diplomacy and persuasive arguments to garner support for the cause. She wrote to prospective candidates of the NSW legislature in order to get them to sign declarations for Women's Suffrage prior to their election. She brought together diverse pressure groups and organisations to advocate suffrage, and she organised deputations to the Premier of New South Wales. All of this is documented in the correspondence provided here. Her mother died in 1896, and Rose Scott devoted herself to an increasing range of feminist issues. She helped to found the National Council for Women of New South Wales and played a key role in the enactment of early closing bill for shops and factories in 1899. The Women's Political Education League made her their first president (1902-1910) and she fought for new laws concerning women's legal status, the custody of infants, and the age of consent (which was raised to 16). She was also elected President of the Sydney Branch of the Peace Society in 1908 and worked indefatigably to gain women's access to public offices. The struggle to gain the vote for women remained paramount. Through the letters in this microfilm collection, scholars can witness the false dawn of 1900, when supportive MP's telegrammed her eagerly to say "Debate now proceeding" and "Bill passed easily" (Reel 2, frames 189-190), only to see the Suffrage Bill rejected by Council on its third reading. After a brief period of depression, Rose Scott redoubled her efforts and won women the right to vote by 1903. Of particular importance is a detailed correspondence with Vida Goldstein of the United Council for Women's Suffrage in Melbourne, who was also fighting a battle for suffrage. These two prominent Australian feminists exchange news and views and discuss appropriate tactics. Other correspondents include: Margaret Agg of the Queensland Women's Electoral
League; When Rose Scott died on 20 April 1925, women in Australia had the right to vote, to stand for public office, and to enjoy a range of educational and career options hitherto denied to them. This microfilm collection will enable scholars to understand how those rights were won, and to compare the struggle for these rights in Australia with similar struggles throughout the rest of the world. Sterling Price: £230 - US Dollar Price: $375 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan and America,
c1930-1955: The Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan The main focus of the Eichelberger Papers is on the period 1942-1949. Prominently highlighted are the military campaigns of General Robert L Eichelberger in New Guinea and the Philippines during World War II (1942-1945); his leadership and role as Commander of US Eighth Army; and the Post-War period when he was in charge of all ground occupation troops in Japan (1945-1948) and acted as second in command to General Douglas MacArthur. The papers contain diaries, correspondence, military papers, writings and speeches, photographs, scrapbooks, printed materials, clippings and other material chiefly relating to Eichelberger's military career. This collection is of vital importance for anyone studying the Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan, and their impact on Asia. Part 1 covers Subject Files on World War II and Japan. Campaign Reports, Eichelberger's dictated notes, Special Reports and Staff Studies on Terain and likely difficulties to be encountered, Naval Intelligence Reports, directives from General Douglas MacArthur, Operations Instructions, Administrative Orders, After Action Reports, interviews with Japanese prisoners and material on the Pearl Harbor Investigative Reports provide extensive documentation on the War in the Pacific, 1941-1945. There is detailed coverage of Eichelberger's leading role in the Biak, Schouten Islands, Buna, New Guinea, Leyte-Samar, Lingayen, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro-Marindugue, Nasugbu, Palawan, Zamboanga, Jolo, Panay, Negros and Cebu campaigns. In addition, there is much material on Operation Coronet (the planned Allied invasion of Japan). There is a wealth of documents on the economic, educational, social and political restructuring of Japan during the period of occupation after World War II. This includes intelligence reports, monthly military summaries, correspondence between the Japanese government and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), war trial reports, monthly non-military summaries, Eighth Army reports, United States Army occupational reports, letters and notes. The bulk of the material covers the years 1945-1948 but it does run right through to 1960. This material on the Occupation of Japan
focuses primarily on the following: The War in the Pacific, 1941-1945: Buna was the first victorious operation
by American Army ground forces against the Japanese. When it came
to writing his detailed report, immediately after Buna, Eichelberger
told the Buna Task Force Liaison Officer at General MacArthur's
headquarters: The liaison officer, R M White, recalls: All Eichelberger's documents on all his campaigns are reproduced here. This material includes Reports, Terrain studies, maps, letters, the exchanges between MacArthur and Eichelberger and other colleagues, interviews with captured Japanese soldiers, Staff studies and analysis, as well as day by day records of each campaign. Sterling Price: £1750 - US Dollar Price: $2800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan and America,
c1930-1955: The Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan Part 2 covers material on events in Japan, providing Monthly Non-Military Summaries, files on the Political Reorganization of Japan 1947-1949, Public Health and Welfare Reports, 1945-1949, Industrial Reparations and Eisenhower's Inspection of Kobe Base in May 1946. There are files on the Sorge Spy Reports and material on Korea. We also include Eichelberger's diaries from Boxes 1-4 of the collection. The Diaries for 1940-1951 are very detailed and contain substantial entries on a daily basis. The following are several examples: Diary: 20 August 1945 Diary: 18 March 1947 Shortly after, Robbie arrived and I gave him a bit of h- - - now and then. He claimed that we had turned him down for hotels at Atami but his own Hindu officer with him pointed out that this was not true. He also tried to indicate that we had stopped construction on Gloucester house at Kobe. I told him that I thought he would find out that his own Colonel Roberts was the one who turned that down - not Eighth Army. It is very evident that they have taken our stock order on procurement more seriously than we intended and Clovis will straighten this out. He was present at my procurement conference and knows that I intended that emergency work would go on. He told me that he thought we should take their Pds on a governmental level. I agreed completely with him and I told him further that I had no personal pride in our personal relations with BCOF. When he said that General MacArthur was anxious that BCOF not reduce their air I was amazed since his orders as read to me the other day in the presence of Byers does not allow BCOF planes to be used outside of their area and then just only for the control and handling of Japanese. I did tell him that his orders contained one point with which I was in favor and that was the one preventing his troops from jumping on me if I were fighting some enemy such as the Chinese Communists or Russia. I pointed out to him that our hotel system had been prepared on our own initiative and had been intended for use as allied hotels. That we had fed men from BCOF with the rations from these hotels for some weeks after we had been told to go on a dollar basis which BCOF didn't own. Rushed from this conference with Robbie to Tokyo for luncheon with the MacArthurs given in honor of Sir Richard O'Connor the #2 man (Adjutant General) of British Forces in London. A fine little chap. He expressed pleasure in meeting me since he had wanted particularly to do so as he had heard a lot of fine things about me from a few of his friends. I sat on Jean's left and he was on her right...." The files on the Occupation of Japan complement the detailed information recorded in Eichelberger's diary for this period. There are Field Orders, SCAP documents, but some of the more interesting material is to be found in his voluminous personal files on social and economic conditions in Japan. Essays, memoranda, articles and background
studies, 1945-1949 include: Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2400 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan and America,
c1930-1955: The Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan Eichelberger's Correspondence files, 1872-1961 (contained in Boxes 5-27) provide scholars with a vast array of Personal and Official Correspondence. The bulk of the material is for the years 1942-1961. There are many war-time letters from General Eichelberger to his wife, Emma Gudger Eichelberger, describing the fighting in the Pacific, the nature of his relations with General Douglas MacArthur, the condition and morale of troops as well as the difficulties of jungle life. The following is the opening of a five page
memorandum written by Eichelberger to his wife on 22 October 1943
just before he left San Francisco for Australia (from Box 8): The next extract comes from a long letter
(from Box 10) dated the Philippines, 16 May 1945, 4:00PM, Headquarters
Eighth Army, United States Army, Office of its Commanding General,
APO 343: Included in the correspondence files are Eichelberger's drafts of many articles, memoranda, volumes and essays on the war such as his Draft for the Army Ground Forces Volume of Pictorial History of World War II, chapter on "The War in the Southwest Pacific" (folio 3 of this is pictured above). The correspondence contains much material on General Douglas MacArthur and events in Japan after 1945. There are letters to and from MacArthur, to and from Eichelberger's military colleagues such as Brig. Gen. Clovis Byers and Major General R K Sutherland, and to and from friends and family. In correspondence and dictations after the war, Eichelberger reflects upon his military career and various people, including Generals Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, Clovis Byers, Dwight D Eisenhower and Robert C Richardson. After leaving Japan, Eichelberger served for about six years in the War Department and then in the Pentagon as an advisor on the Far East. He was also very active on numerous committees and on American political matters from 1948 through to 1961. There are many interesting letters to friends and colleagues during this period, in America, Europe, Australia and Japan, dealing with the situation in the Far East - especially Japan and Korea; also Cuba, Berlin and the communist threat; politics and economics, both in Japan and America, as well as many other subjects. All these letters reveal the deep respect for Eichelberger's views and opinions. On 31 August 1961 Clovis Byers (formerly
Eichelberger's Chief of Staff in the Pacific Campaigns) writes to
him outlining his concern about the Berlin situation (see Box 24,
Folder 2): One box is entirely devoted to his correspondence with the Asheville Chamber of Commerce Review Board, 1955-1958; the North Carolina State Ports Authority, 1959-1960 and with Gertrude Algase, January 1946-March 1950. These letters reveal his continued involvement in serving the community in later life, his large network of friendships across the United States and his readiness to offer advice and support to those in greatest need. Letters for the earlier period, c1903-1941 deal with his upbringing and education at Ohio State University, his graduation from the US Military Academy at West Point, his three years on the War Department General Staff in Washington DC, his experiences in Siberia from 1918 to 1920 serving as Assistant Chief of Staff, Operations Division, and Chief Intelligence Officer with the American Expeditionary Forces, life at the American Embassy in Tokyo in 1920 followed by a year in China and the Philippines on military intelligence activities, as well as his perceptive comments on developments during the inter-war period. Particularly from 1935 onwards, when Eichelberger reached a more senior position as Secretary of the General Staff under General Douglas MacArthur and then General Malin Craig, he had a close insight into all the operations of the War Department and became acquainted with some of the great characters of the period: General Simonds, General Stanley D Embick and General Marshall (when he became Deputy Chief of Staff). Sterling Price: £2100 - US Dollar Price: $3200 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan and America,
c1930-1955: The Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan Part 4 brings together further Subject Files, Writings, Speeches, Photographs and Oversize material. Eichelberger's Writings and Speeches span
from 1917 to 1960 and include material on: Subject Files relating to the Siberian Expedition, 1917-1924, document Eichelberger's early career. The files include situation reports, material on the defence of Vladivostok and correspondence, 1918-1920, during the period Eichelberger served as Assistant Chief of Staff, Operations Division, and Chief Intelligence Officer with the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia. Photographs, Oversize items and Printed Material provide a wide array of further information on Eichelberger's army career, including files on Australia, the New Guinea Campaign, the Philippines Campaign, the Occupation of Japan 1945-1949, and Eichelberger's memoir, "Our Bloody Jungle Road to Tokyo", serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1949. Shigeru Yoshida wrote: Printed Material, 1942-1961 includes: Sterling Price: £1325 - US Dollar Price: $2100 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan and America,
c1930-1955: The Pacific War and the Occupation of Japan This small microfilm project brings together an important cluster of surviving papers collated by Professor Elizabeth Tsunoda, Professor Warren Hunsberger and Mrs Whitney relating to the O'Ryan Mission to Japan and Occupied China in 1940. It covers the Diary of Dr Samuel N Whitney; Correspondence and Papers of Dr Whitney, Dr Hunsberger, General O'Ryan and other members of the Economic and Trade Mission. "The O'Ryan mission papers include
a diary, draft reports, and notes on interviews with Japanese businessmen
and government officials conducted by a team of Americans invited
to survey conditions in Japan and Japanese-occupied areas of China
during the summer of 1940. A private initiative organized by business
interests on both sides of the Pacific, the mission sampled a wide
spectrum of Japanese opinion at a critical juncture in American-Japanese
relations. The papers offer a unique perspective on Japanese and
American thinking as each country made the decisions that led inexorably
to Pearl Harbor." In 1940 General John F O'Ryan, backed up by two economists (Dr Simon Whitney and Dr Warren Hunsberger), and a Japanese-American interpreter (Hannah Syroboiarsky), travelled to Japan and Occupied China. Sponsored by the New York investment firm of Eastman Dillon and the Japan Economic Federation, the O'Ryan mission visited the main centres in Japan, Manchuria, North China and Central China, talking to both Japanese and non-Japanese business leaders and residents. This project contains a wealth of fascinating information collected on their trip, which Dr Hunsberger described as "one of the unsung moves in US-Japan relations after the 1940 denunciation of the trade treaty between the two nations." Material includes: The following is a brief extract from the
Whitney Diary: "I applaud your interest in the
1940 O'Ryan mission to Japan, and Japanese-occupied Manchuria, North
China, and Central China." We are most grateful to the National Archives & Records Administration and the Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library for allowing us to include the small amount of material in the National Archives and at the FDR Library at Hyde Park relating to the O'Ryan Mission in this project. We also wish to acknowledge the help and support of Professor Elizabeth Tsunoda, Professor Warren Hunsberger and Mrs Whitney in making this project possible. Sterling Price: £150 - US Dollar Price: $240 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan Through
Western Eyes Japan Through Western Eyes makes available for the first time the original manuscript diaries, journals and letters of western businessmen, tourists, teachers, missionaries, government officials, industrialists and diplomats active in Japan from its opening up in 1853 to the onset of the Second World War. This first part, from Duke University, is both accessible and wide ranging, bringing together 11 individual collections of papers ranging from a one volume diary of an Ohio woman living in Tokyo and Yokohama in 1928 with her husband, to over 1500 letters and more than a dozen volumes describing the observations of a Methodist missionary based in Kobe from 1888 to 1897 and 1903 to 1923. All of the sources are in English and even the manuscript sources pose no great palaeographic problems. Photographic sources included add another dimension to the first hand accounts of Japanese business, culture and society. The manuscripts bear testimony to the transformation of Japanese society in the period following Commodore Perry's "opening up" of Japan. They witness the development of Japan into a major industrial power, the growth of militarism and the proliferation of political and religious ideologies during this period. They are a rich source for social history and offer insights into the interaction between Western and Japanese culture and attempts by both sides to accommodate and understand different viewpoints. Details of the individual collections covered are given in the following Contents of Reels. Wherever possible we have filmed the papers of these individuals in their entirety. In a few instances, where the original archive for an individual is huge and only a small section relates to Japan, we have chosen to select just the relevant boxes or folders in question. If so, any folder filmed is filmed in its entirety. The detailed listing explains where such choices have been made and gives a brief account of the larger archive. There is some overlap between regions covered. All of the individuals covered here include significant materials relating to Japan. However, they may also include materials relating to China, Hong Kong, Korea and other areas. Similarly, the papers of individuals covered in our companion project China Through Western Eyes may also include materials relating to Japan. There is no duplication of materials in these two projects. Because the material is in English and the script is clear it will be possible to set students project assignments to look at the experiences of an individual in Japan, to compare the experiences of individuals in similar or different areas or those of different genders. The project provides an opportunity for students to look at issues such as: doing business in Japan; domestic life in Japan; the life of the foreign community in Japan; missionary work and religion in Japan; Japan's relations with America, Britain, China and Russia in this period; political events; and cultural life. It will be of interest to all libraries supporting East Asian Studies, World History, Economic History and Cultural Studies. Sterling Price: £1560 US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan Through
Western Eyes "Griffis stands as an intellectual
landmark in the history of the early scholarship on Japan, not only
by his writing and speaking, but by his collecting as well.... Scholars
of early Japanese - U.S. interaction visit the Griffis Collection
regularly to consult and cull information on missionaries such as
Brown, Hepburn, and Verbeck, the yatoi, and on Japanese in the United
States. It is a rich trove of information on much of Meiji and Taisho
Japan, and shows Griffis to be one of America's leading and first
'Old Japan Hands'." The William Elliot Griffis Collection at the Alexander Library, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is an outstanding source for the study of Japan - US relations, Western perspectives on Japan and Japan's views of the West. As well as documenting Griffis's own life-long involvement with Japan as an author, educator and a yatoi, it gains added importance as a result of the material collected by Griffis documenting contacts with Japan from 1853 through to 1928. After Commodore Perry's visits to Japan in 1853 and 1854 which ended the policy of seclusion, interaction between Japan and America grew steadily. In 1868 the Emperor Meiji in the Charter Oath declaration called on the Japanese to seek knowledge from around the world. Many young scholars went abroad and New Brunswick was probably second only to London in attracting Japanese students. Both as a student at Rutgers College (graduating in 1869) and as a teacher at the local Grammar School, William Elliot Griffis (1843-1928) met and was profoundly influenced by the large influx of Japanese students in New Brunswick between 1866 and 1870. As a result of these contacts and through the intermediary of Guido Verbeck - a pioneer missionary in Japan - Griffis signed a contract in 1870 to teach science in Fukui. Griffis was one of the first oyatoi gaikokujin,
or foreign employees of the Japanese government. After nearly a
year in Fukui working at the behest of Matsudaira Shungaku, the
forward-looking leader of the domain of Echizen, Griffis was called
to Tokyo to help establish the first official schools along western
lines. From 1872 to 1874 he taught at the Kaisei Gekko, the forerunner
of the present Tokyo University and travelled widely as a freelance
worker, meeting missionaries, educators and other Yatoi as
well as with the elite of the Meiji government. Griffis maintained
a series of detailed journals recording his experiences and also
retained his correspondence and papers relating to his teaching
in Japan. He also became an assiduous collector of materials relating
to US - Japanese relations, including original manuscript materials
relevant to Millard Fillimore, Matthew Perry, Guido Verbeck, James
Ballagh, J C Hepburn and Samuel Robbins Brown. These sources all
form part of the Griffis Collection. After returning to the United States in 1874, Griffis embarked on a career writing and lecturing on Japan and related subjects. His 1876 volume The Mikado's Empire was for decades the authoritative reference in the West on Japanese culture and history and Griffis was regarded at America's foremost interpreter of Japanese culture. He also published important works on Korea, such as Korea: the Hermit Nation in 1882. In 1926 he returned to Japan to receive the Order of the Rising Sun. He died in 1928. The William Elliot Griffis Collection forms Parts 2-5 of our ongoing series entitled Japan Through Western Eyes. It fully reflects his life and interests and provides valuable insights into the political, commercial and cultural history of Japan. Part 2 covers both Griffis's own Journals, 1859-1928, and a series of essays written by Griffis's students at Kaisei Gekko. There are 31 Journals in total. The first seven cover his involvement in the Civil War and his own educational experiences. Volume 8 records his journey to Japan via Omaha and San Francisco and also includes important records of the classes that he taught in Japan, those attending, their comments and contributions. There are also notes on Japanese subjects such as historic sites, legends and religion. Volumes 9-12 also cover his experiences in Japan and are a hybrid between diaries (recording his travels, meetings, classes and reading) and commonplace books (storing nuggets of information that he has gleaned on subjects as diverse as the tea ceremony, necrology, sugar-milling and yatoi). The Student Essays are one of the highlights of the collection. The 319 essays were written in English for Griffis by his students at the Kaisei Gekko in Tokyo and date from 1872 to 1874. They are organised by topic in 20 sub-series and cover: Ainos These original manuscript essays provide
a valuable quarry for information on Japanese life and culture,
written in English but from a Japanese perspective. The essays on
"Foreigners" show how cultural stereotypes existed on
all sides and were a major stumbling block in developing close relations.
Sterling Price: £475 - US Dollar Price: $750 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan Through
Western Eyes
The scrapbooks are among the most curious and fascinating sources in the Griffis Collection. Typical of 19th Century practice, they are bound volumes into which have been pasted all types of materials, most especially newspaper and journal clippings and ephemera. There are 29 volumes in total, plus a separate volume containing Articles and Reviews. Due to the highly acidic paper of the original volumes, these scrapbooks have long been closed to researchers. Now they can be consulted via this microfilm edition. The William Elliot Griffis Collection will be a great asset to scholars exploring topics such as the contribution of the yatoi to the modernisation of Japan; Japanese views of the West, 1850-1875; Japanese Culture & Society, 1850-1900; Pioneer doctors, educators, engineers and missionaries in Japan, 1850-1875; Japanese in the United States; and Western views of Japan, Korea and China. It will be welcomed by those working in East Asian Studies and World History. Sterling Price: £1800 - US Dollar Price: $2900 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan Through
Western Eyes September 1999 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Japan Through
Western Eyes November 1999 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Jewish Studies
The Parkes Library at the University of Southampton is recognised as one of the most important collections in Britain for the study of Jewish History. Based on the working library of Rev Dr J W Parkes (1896-1981), a founder member of the Council of Christians and Jews, the Library includes some 14,000 books, 2,500 pamphlets and 360 periodical titles. Many of these are extremely rare, especially those collected by Parkes in the 1930's when he was working for the International Student Service in Europe. Part 1 of this project makes available 95 rare printed sources from the Parkes Library, dating from 1680 to 1930, covering three major themes: the history of Jewish communities throughout Europe; the rights and status of Jews in Britain; and the History of Palestine. The first theme , covering the history of
Jewish communities throughout Europe, is an area in which Parkes
had a particular interest. He felt that the growth of anti-semitism
in the 1930's and 1940's could in part be understood by studying
the history of local Jewish communities across the world and their
historic relations with their host countries. Such histories also
help us to unravel the Jewish diaspora and to understand the strength
of Jewish communities in continental Europe prior to the holocaust. The second theme, concerning the rights and status of Jews in Britain, is really an extension of the first, detailing the lives of Jews in Britain from the 11th century onwards. Their struggle for naturalisation and enfranchisement is documented well, as is the contribution of British Jews to the creation of a Zionist state in Israel. Titles include: An Historical Treatise concerning Jews and Judaism in England (1753), Egan's The Status of Jew's in England (1848) and Great Britain, Palestine & the Jews: A Survey (1918). The third theme is the History of Palestine. This develops from the previous theme given that Britain has had such a close involvement in the region. The geography and culture of Palestine are described through the eyes of politicians, diplomats and travellers. Examples include: Bannister's A Survey of the Holy Land: Its Geography, History and Destiny (1843), Bonar & McCheyne's Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and ... to the Jews (1878), Ramsay MacDonald's A Socialist in Palestine (1922) and Horace Samuel's Unholy Memories of the Holy Land (1930). These rare printed sources will enhance the holdings of any library collecting in the area of Jewish Studies. They will permit a better understanding of the history of local Jewish communities throughout Europe, as well as illuminating the history of Palestine. The complete list of titles is given below. Individual fiche can be ordered at a pro-rata price. Sterling Price: £1770 - US Dollar Price: $2900 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Jewsbury: The
Collected Writings of Geraldine Jewsbury (1812-1880) Jewsbury was a leading figure in the Victorian literary world, as a reviewer, a publisher's reader and as a literary hostess. When she lived in Manchester (acting as housekeeper for her brother Frank) she held fashionable parties that attracted friends such as the Kingsleys, the Rosettis, Lady Morgan, Lady Llanover, Helena Faucit, Viscountess Combermere, Ruskin, Huxley, Froude and Bright. She became respected amongst both women and men. She met Jane Carlyle in 1841 and the two became firm friends, regular correspondents, and conspirators against the forces of a society that placed them in such gender specific roles. Her own writings deserve attention and can now be read and enjoyed again. This project includes all of Jewsbury's book-length works including Zoe: the history of two lives (1845) - one of the earliest Victorian novels to explore religious scepticism; The half-sisters (1848), arguably her finest work, exploring existential questions and contrasting the focussed and fulfilled life of an actress with the hum-drum existence of a manufacturer's wife; Marian Withers (1851) - which was heavily influenced by Saint-Simonian ideas; Constance Herbert (1855); The sorrows of gentility (1856); as well as A selection from the letters of Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle (1892). Sterling Price: £470 - US Dollar Price: $750 Adam Matthew Publications Home PageJournalism and Politics Series One: The Papers of C P Scott, 1846-1932, from the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Part 1: C P Scott's General Correspondence, c1870-1934, and Political Diaries, 1911-1928 22 reels of 35mm silver-halide positive microfilm plus guide C P Scott's correspondence, spanning 1870 to 1932, (nearly 4,000 letters) makes up the heart of the archive. There are important letters concerning Women's Suffrage, Ireland, the First World War, Russia and all aspects of British Politics. The following extract comes from H N Brailsford's
letter to Scott on 17 July 1910 on behalf of the Conciliation Committee
for Woman Suffrage: Herbert Asquith, Nancy Astor, Stanley Baldwin, Beaverbrook, Lloyd-George, the Fawcetts, Gladstone, Churchill, the Pankhursts, John Maynard Keynes, Viscount Haldane, L T Hobhouse, Arthur Henderson, John Masefield and W T Stead all feature strongly in the correspondence files. This microfilm edition also includes C P Scott's Political Diary, 1911-1928. Trevor Wilson's edited version of The Political Diaries of C P Scott, 1911-1928 (Collins, London 1970) provides a taste of the richness of this source. As he says "the value of a journal like this lies less in its startling revelations than in the cumulative effect of dozens of tiny incidents which it records." Here we reproduce for the first time the comprehensive text of the entire diary - never published in full before. Scanning through the diary it seems that Scott had more one-to-one meetings with Lloyd-George than many Cabinet Ministers. Events are captured with a journalistic eye for detail; great historical events are brought to life in a most perceptive manner; Scott records verbatim meetings with international figures such as Kerensky, Gandhi, Jan Smuts, Sokolnikov and Rabindranath Tagore. The letters amplify the themes of the political diary. Just as the study of the events and the personalities is important, the relationship of political protagonists with the media deserves greater study. Here is a collection which permits such an investigation over three or four crucial decades. For more than half a century C P Scott was a leading figure - perhaps the Leader - in the newspaper journalism of the world. Scholars of Modern History, Irish Affairs, Freedom, Peace, Journalism and Newspaper History, Literature, India, Women's Suffrage, Gender Studies, the First World War and the Russian Revolution will find endless research opportunities in this collection. Sterling Price: £1700 - US Dollar Price: $2750 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Labour History Never before published in microform, the Memoranda and Information Papers of the Research Department of the British Labour Party are an invaluable source for understanding the factual analysis that lay behind the party's policies from 1941-1979. Founded in 1900, the British Labour Party came of age with its massive victory in the 1945 General Election. Surprising many, the Labour Party swept Britain's great war-time leader Winston Churchill from office by taking 393 seats and 47.8% of the vote. The secret of the party's success lay in its policies which were more in tune with the mood of the electorate, embracing popular concepts of public ownership, a welfare state and a national health service. These policies were forged through a process of argument, debate and discussion. The Research Department Memoranda and Information Papers document this synthesis of ideas and attitudes and their process through to agreed statements of party policy. Part 1 of this microfiche project covers the Research Department Memoranda for the period July 1941 through to December 1961. The Memoranda are internal discussion papers. The Information Papers which were first produced by the Information Unit and its precursors from 1960 onwards, provide summaries on particular issues for public, party and media information purposes. Parts Two through to Five of this microfiche project will cover both the Research Department Memoranda from 1961 and the Information Papers from 1960 through to the General Election of 1979. Part 1 is devoted to the years 1941-1961. This was a period in which Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and Ernest Bevin pursued a policy of peace-time reconstruction, rather than continuing Britain's role in international power politics as proposed by Churchill. They passed an immense raft of legislation including the nationalisation of the Bank of England in 1946, the nationalisation of the railways, coal and steel in 1947, and the thorough reorganisation of the Health Services. The latter led to confrontation with the British Medical Association over the formation of the National Health Service. Such controversial issues, combined with continuing rationing, heavy taxation, wage restraints and the forced devaluation of the pound in 1949 caused some unpopularity for the Labour government. Labour's far-sighted decolonisation policy also aroused much debate. Notwithstanding this, the Labour Party was re-elected, albeit with a reduced majority, in 1950. The following year, Wilson, Bevan and Freeman all resigned from the government in protest against the introduction of prescription charges. A further General Election was forced in 1951 and Labour was defeated. Labour still achieved the highest ever percentage of the vote (48.8%) but the Conservatives (with 48%) gained more seats and began 13 years of uninterrupted rule. Throughout much of the 1950's the Labour Party was characterised by public dissension amongst its leaders resulting in a steady decline of its popularity with the electorate. The party suffered three successive election defeats. Clement Atlee retired and Hugh Gaitskell took over the leadership after the lost of the 1955 General Election. The Labour cause was hampered by inter-union rivalries and the effect of a month long newspaper strike followed, during the election period, by a dock strike and the threat of a rail strike. The National Executive immediately appointed a sub-committee under the chairmanship of Harold Wilson to enquire into the state of the party organisation. This internal enquiry submitted its report to the next party conference in October 1955. The report recommended the creation of a special sub-committee of the National Executive to supervise the work of party organisation; special help in future for marginal constituencies; and the decentralisation of many activities to regional offices. A series of Research Department Memoranda, in particular, R522, R532 and R541, addressed the requirements of the Research Programme on Future Policy sketching out a timetable for the next three years. As a line of approach it was suggested "that we set out a number of key themes which need detailed thinking about and examination, and on which reports could be prepared. If our investigations prove worthwhile these could provide the basis of study papers to be submitted to future Annual Conferences so as to prepare the background towards a new policy statement." The following topics were suggested for study: Equality, the State and Industry, Security and Old Age, Education, Housing, Agriculture, Bureaucracy and Liberty, and finally, the Atomic and Automated Age. The Research Department Memorandum, R522 of July 1955 notes on page 4 "It must be emphasised that the Research Department staff available for this work is small, and that if we are to get the best value from the staff it should be used economically. The complex sub-committee system which the Policy Committee had at its disposal in the preceeding years of opposition, though no doubt desirable, was too elaborate for the small secretariat which we have available. Meetings were too frequent for sold research to be done and considerable time is spent by the Office in preparing a very large number of background documents to support the basis of a single conclusion on particular items of government machinery. As a result not enough time is devoted either to thinking out general objectives or for drafting final statements for publication." The note on procedure continues "Given our existing resources the best way forward would be to allocate a field of study to an individual member of the Research staff so that he could make an exhaustible report on the problem. This study should be able to be taken under the guidance of a small study group made up of a few members of the Policy Committee and one or two outside experts who would guide the Office on the syllabus to be studied, keep in touch with progress and digest the final report before it was submitted to the Policy Committee." It continues: "In particular this procedure does not mean that we should dispense with sub-committees but rather that their role should be changed. Instead of frequent sub-committee meetings the idea is that the study group should meet at the start of the project to consider the syllabus and then that the responsible research worker should go ahead and work up a serious memorandum after doing the necessary reading and analysis and making contacts with outside experts, eg in the universities. When the task was completed the finished work would be considered by the study group before it was referred to Policy Committee. If the reports were of sufficiently high standing, it is suggested that these could then be submitted to Annual Conference for discussion and debate. These papers would be available for Annual Conference in 1956, 1957 and 1958 and would prepare the ground for a new statement of policy." The Memorandum, R532 of September 1955 emphasised that "the research worker concerned would have to maintain close contact with reliable and sympathetic experts in his field". The Memorandum, R541 of November 1955 notes "The carrying through of this Research Programme and the successful preparation of worthwhile policy documents must now be considered the priority task of both the Home Policy Committee and the Research Department. The Home Policy Committee will no doubt wish to keep its sub-committee structure down to a minimum and avoid unnecessary commitments, and it is equally desirable that the relatively small number of places in the Research Department available to carry through this work should be free, as far as is possible, to concentrate on it." The Suez Affair solidified the Labour Party behind its leadership and revived at least momentarily the early prospect of a return to power. The Government's policy was hotly debated both in Parliament and outside. Hugh Gaitskell and Bevan working well together and making effective fighting speeches. However, the collapse of Sir Anthony Eden placed a really formidable opponent, Harold Macmillan, in the office of Prime Minister. Macmillan managed to rescue the Conservative Party from the consequences of Suez. In 1959 the Labour Party put together a powerful and effective election campaign. Gaitskell himself made a successful tour of the country, impressing many electors with his vigour and sincerity. The Labour Party's television broadcasts had a greater impact than those of the Conservatives, in an election in which television counted for more than ever before. Also, the Press Conferences called by the Labour Party Secretary Morgan Phillips, were unexpectedly successful and own much publicity in the newspapers. Despite a good campaign by Labour the results gave the Conservative Party a considerably increased majority. The Conservatives now held 365 seats (49.4% of the vote) against Labour's 258 seats (43.8% of the vote). The Labour Party had now lost three consecutive elections, by an increasing margin on each occasion. It was therefore natural that the failure of 1959 should be followed by a much more searching phase of self-examination than the party had ever undertaken before. However, disagreements over the revision of the Labour Party Constitution and also a furore over the party's Defence Policy and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament took attention away from a concentration on working towards a new statement of principles. An outline of a programme was eventually laid down in the statement Signposts for the Sixties in 1961and this was endorsed by the Blackpool Conference. The two volumes of Research Department Memoranda for 1961 feature the various drafts for the 1961 Policy Statement (RD124), various draft statements on Britain and Europe (including RD124, RD112, RD113, RD114 and RD126) as well as tackling many issues such as Ship-building, British entry into the Common Market, the Steel Industry, pensions fraud, Britain's scientific and technical resources, education, and new needs in social policy. The substance of the debates on decolonisation, economic policy, health, nuclear power and nuclear deterrents and other prominent issues, together with Labour's distinctive views which formed much of the agenda for the post-war period can be found in these volumes of Research Department Memoranda. This microfiche set therefore provides an essential research and reference resource for all those interested in the post-war years. The Nature and Organisation of the Research Department: The very first volume of Research Memoranda commences with the scheme of Committees on Reconstruction, agreed by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party based on the recommendations made by Professor Harold J Laski in July 1941. Sub-committees were to be set up to discuss policy issues on the following subjects: International organisation including the
future of the armaments industry. A Central Committee, with Laski as its Secretary, was to be responsible for co-ordinating the work of the various sub-committees and for the allocation of permanent Research Staff to carry out the investigation of particular issues. In The Labour Party and Whitehall (London, 1992), Kevin Theakston, Lecturer in Politics at the University of Leeds, notes that "behind a party's programme there needed to be solid investigation, with the party organisation able to serve up detailed proposals in such a form that there could be no question of delay after the election while the official machine ponderously set about trying to clothe ministerial policy in concrete terms, giving vested interests and its opponents time to mobilise against the government." Thus the Labour Party needed a Research Department to furnish it with necessary reports and detailed policy proposals. The Labour Research Department itself evolved from the Fabian Research Bureau founded in 1912. This became the Labour Research Department, based at Policy Headquarters, in 1917. Important work was done in the 1930's by the National Executive Committee's policy sub-committees and by unofficial socialist think-tanks such as the New Fabian Research Bureau and the informal XYZ Club of financial and economic experts. During the war years great strides were made in producing a feasible party programme and the first Research Department Memoranda date from July 1941. The Research Department did, however, suffer from a number of problems. Looking back, in the mid 1960's the Crossman Diaries are very scathing about the lack of preparatory work during periods of Opposition. At one point in the mid 1950's a lot of detailed work was done, but after 1959 a deliberate decision was taken for a broad brush approach. Progress was also hampered by the peculiar structure of Labour Party policy-making. Authority was divided between Conference, the National Executive Committee and the parliamentary leadership in the Shadow Cabinet. Resolutions could be approved by Conference and become party policy without any research work being done. There were difficulties in co-ordinating Labour's policy-making in Opposition. Particular election set-backs would prompt renewed self-examination and a need to co-ordinate research and policy activities. However, distractions of one kind and another always loomed large on the horizon. There was also a third problem. This was the Labour Party's limited research capability. Labour's Research Department is small. The number of researchers fluctuated between 8 and 17 in the period from 1950 to 1979 (this is something like half the size of the Conservative Research Department which itself professes to be overstretched and can do very little in-depth policy research). When one also considers that these research staff must also service the National Executive Committees sub-committee network and work on party publications and other routine functions, (it has been estimated that only around one fifth of their time is actually devoted to "research), it is surprising that such a considerable amount of Labour Party Research is carried out at all. In the 1970's some Labour front benchers were able to employ their own research assistants (funded by the Rowntree Trust) and after 1979 the so-called "Short Money" provided funds for Shadow Cabinet advisors (allowing each member of the Shadow Cabinet at least a half-share in a researcher). Over the years various proposals have been made to beef up the Labour Party's research effort, with talk of an enlarged Research Department, better links between party headquarter and the advisors working for Labour front benchers (in and out of office) in the form of an independent socialist think-tank. The Fabian Society has long been unable to conduct much policy research. One may reflect that the appearance in 1989 of the Labour-orientated Institute for Public Policy Research was a belated response to the influential right-wing think-tanks which have had such a notable impact on the policy agenda and thinking of the Thatcher government in the 1980's. This microfiche set includes a comprehensive list of all the Research Department Memoranda for the period July 1941 through to May 1979. This appears on the first six microfiche. Also, a full list of all the Research Department Memoranda in each volume is reproduced at the start of that particular volume. A subject index is available for the Research Department Memoranda for the period June 1970 through to June 1981 and this is reproduced on fiche 7, 8, 9 and 10. The subject index to the Information Papers, 1960-1981 is reproduced on fiche 11. The body of material for Part 1 then starts on fiche 12. In all, Part 1, covering the period 1941 through to 1961 comprises a total of 167 microfiche. With its detailed listing and subject indexes this project provides material that is readily accessible to the researcher and very easy to use. A tremendous range of subjects is covered. The subject indexes include headings under: Advertising There are some important contributions by prominent figures such as Denis Healey, Tony Benn, Aneurin Bevan and Richard Crossman. However, the bulk of the material is that produced by the Research Department staff. A typical volume, that for 1945-1947, includes memoranda on Labour policy for privately owned industry, the educational programme, Trades Disputes Act, 40-hour week, the achievements of Labour Councils, the National Health Service, the Research Programme 1946-1947, Criteria for Nationalisation, and Public Ownership: The Next Step. A memorandum of November 1945, RD9, sets out the Staff Needs of the Research Department. Michael Young, Secretary of the Research Department, summarises the department's work as follows:- "a) Provision of secretariat to the Policy Committee and the sub-committees, eg. Joint committee with the TUC on trusts and cartels. b) Maintenance of full records for information purposes. c) Provision of information on policy matters to MPs, candidates, Labour Parties, Trade Unions, and other affiliated organisations, writers for the Press, individual members of the Party, etc, d) Provision of information and advice on all aspects of local government and the maintenance of contact with Labour Groups of Local Authorities. e) Editing and publication of the Labour Bulletin, Handbooks, eg. General Election Speaker's Handbook, 1945, and Local Government Handbook 1956-1946, and any Policy Reports that may be called for. f) Preparation and publication of topical educational pamphlets in the Labour Discussions Series, and of advice on methods of making the best use of these pamphlets, including suggestions about syllabuses for weekend and summer schools. First six subjects are: Rise of the Labour Party, Shortages, Coal Nationalisation, Bank of England and Investment Control, Exports, and Local Government Reform, but others will follow at regular intervals. g) On the assumption that the department takes responsibility for further Labour Party publications eg. Speaker's Notes, Labour Year Book, possible Local Government Bulletin, Labour Diary, and election and campaign material, the work of the Department will be considerably augmented." Michael Young notes It is essential that at all times the Department should make the greatest possible use of voluntary workers, including MPs, members of the Fabian Society, PP and individual members of the Party. But at the moment the pressure on the Secretary, Miller and other members of the staff is too great to allow of the most effective mobilisation of volunteers." In RD32 of October 1946 Michael Young comments on the Research Programme for 1946-1947. In paragraph two he notes: "In some ways the reformulation will present more difficulty than that contained in Let Us Face the Future. The latter embodied the thinking of two decades which had offered practically no opportunity of carrying out Labour's policy. The next election programme, on the other hand, will call for new and original thinking on certain questions during years in which many leading members of the Party, on the national and local levels, will be heavily occupied with vital current tasks, although if the Government's policy on such matters as housing, the social services and education is fully successful there will be no need for any basic change in the Party's programme. It is also far more difficult to draw up election programmes in advance than before the war since the Labour government, unlike Tory governments of the past, is introducing great reforms and their results cannot yet be forseen in detail." The five page document also reviews requirements concerning co-operation with the Fabian Society on future research work. All this had to be achieved with a staff of four people plus Michael Young as Secretary! RD57 of May 1960 provides a four page analysis of the Research Department: its functions and staff. Paragraph 1 established the need for a Research Department: "No individual can hope to keep abreast of changing developments in all the different fields of politics. Consequently there is a need for the services of those who can specialise in particular fields who can be relied upon to digest and interpret the information available. This is the basic reason why, in modern conditions, it is almost inconceivable that a political party should not have a Research Department. Even when the Party is in office, a research staff is necessary: for it has to assist the NEC in the preparation of future policy and it has also to assist in keeping the movement in the country fully informed of the problems and achievements of a Labour Government. When the Party is in Opposition however - and when the period of opposition is as long as ours has been - the Research Department must not only help its political leaders in their policy making but must act, as best it can, as a shadow civil service as well." The document goes on to assess the quality and experience of members of the Research Department. It makes it clear that the Research Department does not, of course, make policy. However, it must ensure that when committees of either the NEC or of the parliamentary party are considering policy matters all the relevant information and argument is available to them. A high standard of work is required and speed, accuracy, judgement and intelligence are needed. The document states that in May 1960 only three out of eight members of the Department have had more than two years experience. This was argued to be an unsatisfactory state of affairs. The document then goes on to assess the number of research assistants employed by the department. In 1940, as pointed out above, there were only 4 members. By 1950 there were 9 research assistants, 10 by 1953, 11 by 1956, 13 in 1959, but the number had dropped to 8 by 1960. The document concludes "It will be seen that the transition from Government to Opposition has made surprisingly little difference to the strength of the Department. There were 9 members in 1949-50 and, on average, 10 members between 1951-55. During the second period of Opposition 1955-59 the period in which the Department sustained a large programme of policy work - numbers rose from 11 to a maximum of 13 in election year." The report concludes that at least twelve people are needed for the Research Department. It states "I am, however, certain that we cannot satisfactorily carry out our duties to the parliamentary party now entering its tenth year of Opposition nor to the Home Policy Committee with less than 12 people (for purposes of comparison, the Committee might like to know that today, with all the resources of government available to their Ministers, the Conservative Party Research Department numbers well over 30)." RD90 of November 1960 goes on to outline a programme of work for the Home Policy Sub-Committee of the Labour Party. It assesses the roles of the various Sub-Committees dealing with current policy. This gives an appraisal and lists the membership of the Sub-Committee on Finance and Economic Policy, the Local Government Sub-Committee, the study group on Security and Old Age, the Sub-Committee on Television and Radio, the Sub-Committee on Industry and Science, the Joint Committee on Fuel and Power Policy, and the Joint Committee on BTC Finances. By 1960 the Research Department was placing a greater emphasis on Parliamentary Briefings. It was offering new services such as a weekly report of news and comments for the Parliamentary Committee, Information Series: generally, substantial papers on major topics available to the whole Parliamentary Party, and more extensive briefing of Front Bench speakers and groups for Parliamentary debates. These new services were to keep the Research Department extremely busy. It was still also very much involved in Local Government Briefing, playing a big part in Party Propaganda and Publications, such as the production of the Speaker's Handbook and the preparation of a substantial range of pamphlets on domestic policy. It was producing fortnightly Talking Points, Campaign Notes during elections, and the supply of information for both the Press Department and the Television and Radio Unit. By 1960 it was envisaged that in the Research Department should continue to play an important role in propaganda work, if anything, in the future the Department needed to do more not less in the propaganda field. On policy, by May 1960, it was assumed that at least in the immediate future, the Research Department would not be engaged in the preparation of a large series of policy statements such has had been the case between 1955 and 1959. Nevertheless, the Department still had an important role to play on many policy issues. The Department serviced as its main function the National Executive Committee's Home Policy Sub-Committee, but also had to service the Local Government Sub-Committee as well. Each of those Committees had its own Sub-Committees - some temporary like the National Health Service Sub-Committee and others much more permanent like the Finance and Economic Policy Sub-Committee. The requirements of such a great number of committees and sub-committees was a great strain on the resources of the Research Department. The Research Department had a vital role to fulfil in giving a competent and reliable service of information and advice to all these committees. The Department also had a clear duty to keep in touch with the many research centres in the universities and elsewhere doing creative research work on social, economic and industrial problems. The Department had to ensure that the results of such independent research were brought to the notice of the Policy Committee. This role required a very patient and persistent cultivation of the personal contacts with outside researchers. All these functions meant that the Research Department had a pivotal role in the synthesis of ideas and attitudes, the provision of information, and the shaping of documentation through to agreed statements of party policy. This microfiche publication is an invaluable source for understanding this process. Sterling Price: £1050 - US Dollar Price: $1700 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Labour History Part 2 of this project covers the British Labour Party Research Department Memoranda for the period January 1962 up to May 1970 along with the Information Papers for 1960-1970. These documents are an invaluable source for understanding the factual analysis lying behind the party's policies, whether in Opposition or in Government. They reveal the synthesis of ideas and attitudes and their process through to agreed statements of party policy. Part 2 begins with the Research Department Memoranda for 1962 and follows immediately on from the last volume covered in Part 1. At the end of Part 2, the final 26 microfiche feature the Information Papers, 1960-1970. Gaitskell consolidated his position within the Party in 1961 and 1962. However, the principal beneficiary of Gaitskell's successful fight against the left wing was Harold Wilson, who was elected as the new leader of the party in 1963. This was a period of recovery for Labour climaxing in their return to power in October 1964, although with a very small majority. Further electoral success in March 1966 provided a more substantial parliamentary majority and once again increased Wilson's authority as Prime Minister. On policy issues there was the greatest variety of opinion on foreign affairs, in particular, on the question of joining the Common Market, increasing difficulties on economic policy, pressure on the pound and the threat of devaluation, culminating in the November 1967 decision to devalue sterling from $2.80 to the pound to $2.40. Roy Jenkins took over as Chancellor of the Exchequer. By the time of his 1969 budget the effects of devaluation were at last apparent and the balance of trade was moving into surplus. The Government's proposals on a new framework for industrial relations, going well beyond the ideas of the Donovan Report, were defeated by a specially summoned Trades Union Congress. The Labour Party in Parliament found itself confronted by a revolt including not only most of the usual left-wing rebels but also a great many MPs customarily most loyal to the party whip. The Prime Minister and Barbara Castle, the Secretary for Employment and Productivity, had to give way. In spite of increasing troubles in the sphere of economics and industry, the Government gradually recovered some semblance of popularity in the later months of 1969 and early 1970. The 1970 budget further helped Labour to regain ground in the opinion polls. Wilson decided to hold another General Election in June 1970. The election manifesto, with a photograph of Harold Wilson on the cover, was entitled Now Britain's Strong Let's Make it Great to Live In. The electoral campaign started well and positive signs continued right up until polling day itself. However, it was not to be. The constituencies swung to the Conservatives by an average of 4.7 per cent which was enough to give Edward Heath a majority of 31 in the new Parliament. It was a surprise result. Observers had great difficulty deciding why the opinion polls had been so misleading. Nevertheless, Harold Wilson was re-elected unopposed to the Leadership. There was little or no recrimination within the party ranks and this must be tribute to Wilson's authority and prestige established since 1963. Interest centred on the Deputy Leadership. George Brown had lost his seat and had accepted a peerage. Roy Jenkins, after his successful period at the Treasury, easily defeated his rivals Michael Foot and Fred Peart. The elections for the Shadow Cabinet also turned out well for the right wing and for those who supported Britain's entry into the Common Market. However, the Trade Union leadership remained predominantly left wing. During this decade of two electoral triumphs the Research Department continued to play a major role providing information to all Committees, organising new research work, briefing the Parliamentary Party, Local Government, Ministers and other party officials, as well as preparing an immense raft of documentation for the discussion of policy issues. Memoranda for 1962 include the following subjects: Economic Planning; Labour's Social Security Scheme; Social Security Provision in Germany and Sweden; Housing; Export failure; the Common Market; Immigration; Advertising; Land Ownership; Education; Industrial Relations; Non-Manual Workers; Scottish Affairs; The British Film Industry; Local Government Finance; the Railways; Pensions; Agriculture; Welsh Policy; Incomes Policy and Training Skilled Workers for Industry. RD 349 sets out the Programme of Work for 1963. "Work this year must have firmly in view the prospect of a General Election. It should aim, therefore, both to convince the Party and the public that we have the answers to our present national problems, and to assist the incoming Labour Ministers." It continues: "Most of the work now going on in the sub-committees (eg on economic planning; on social security; on higher education, etc) is geared to these ends, while the two new working parties on Scotland and Wales have been set up for the precise purpose of producing policies, within the framework of 'Signposts for the Sixties' for these two countries." It identifies three important gaps in Labour
policy studies RD 363 is devoted to the Research Department Budget for 1963. There is a brief comment on the increased expenditure required to meet the salaries of re search assistants and library staff. A more detailed treatment appears in RES 4, dated December 1964, with comparisons between 1959 and 1964 staff levels in the Department: It notes as follows:- Geoffrey Gibson had secured a post in an American University some months before but stayed on until after the General Election. Richard Pryke also secured a University post before the General Election, and when it came he was given leave of absence to fight Portsmouth South and did not return to the Department. Stuart Greenstreet with six years service in the Department, John Allen with nearly six years, and Richard Pryke with five years unbroken service, had served during the 1959 General Election. Geoffrey Gibson joined the Department in September 1960. The point is that each of these members had over four years experience by October this year. The present position of the Department's staff can best be seen by comparison with the position in December 1959. 31 December 1959 * left February 1960 16 December 1964 As can be seen, in spite of some anticipatory recruitment during the past year, the Department has now been reduced from its normal composition of eleven Research Assistants to eight. At 31 December 1959 there were ten Research Assistants but two left shortly afterwards, reducing the number to eight - which is the same number as at 16 December 1964. In 1960 there were no new appointments until after the Head of Department was appointed in June of that year. The Committee will no doubt wish to strengthen the Department at the earliest opportunity; the post of Research Secretary has already been advertised. While vacancies should be filled as quickly as possible it is suggested that, if possible, the bunching of new appointments be avoided. The influx of new members does present to the Research Secretary a considerable problem of training and supervision and in any case it may be thought to be a good idea to give the new Research Secretary a voice in the selection of his new staff." As always the Labour Research Department w as extremely stretched to meet all its functions. Its pivotal role in the synthesis of ideas and attitudes, the provision of information, and the shaping of documentation through to agreed statements of party policy will be borne out by any study of the wealth of Research Memoranda and Information Papers it contributed. As Dr Kevin Theakston, Department of Politics,
University of Leeds, and author of The Labour Party and Whitehall
(London 1992) points out: The first two fiche of Part 2 (fiche 190 and 191) provide a detailed listing of all Research Department memoranda included in Part 2 of this microfiche edition. Fiche 315 has a detailed listing of the Information Papers 1960-1970 along with a useful Subject Index. Sterling Price: £850 - US Dollar Price: $1360 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Labour History Part 3 of this project covers the British Labour Party Research Department Memoranda for the period June 1970 up to October 1974 along with the Information Papers for 1971-1974. These documents are an invaluable source for understanding the factual analysis lying behind the party's policies, whether in Opposition or in Government. They reveal the synthesis of ideas and attitudes and their process through to agreed statements of party policy. After the General Election of June 1970 the Labour Party again found themselves in Opposition until March 1974 when they came back to power, but only as a minority government. Part 3 of this project ends at the October 1974 election when Labour improved the position, gaining an overall majority of 3 seats, enabling them to carry on under Harold Wilson and then James Callaghan through the mid-1970s. The period from November 1974 to May 1979 will be covered in Part 4 of this microfiche project. Harold Wilson was re-elected to the leadership unopposed after the election defeat of June 1970. Issues of particular importance in this period were Britain's entry into the Common Market, the Housing Finance Bill, Industrial Relations, Unemployment, Inflation, Oil Prices and the Miners' Strike. No: 38 of the Series of Information Papers for 1972 deals with the Housing Finance Bill with details of a consultative conference on education and housing. Nos: 22 and 25 of 1972, Nos: 52, 64 and 77 of 1973, also focus on housing. Nos: 1, 12 and 14 of 1971 address Britain's entry into the Common Market. Subjects addressed by the Information Papers for 1974 include the Structure of Local Government in England and Wales, Social Security Legislation, North Sea Oil, Nuclear Power, Trade Unions and Labour Relations, Pensions, Equality for Women, Nationalisation of the Ports, Agriculture, Northern Ireland and the Tories' economic record. Research Memoranda for the second half of 1970 begin with an emphasis on Local Government. RD 2 of July 1970 begins: "Labour's defeat in the General Election adds new importance to the rebuilding of Labour's strength in local government. The loss in recent years of many experienced councillors makes it highly desirable that some form of training should be provided for the new candidates who will be replacing them. No doubt some courses will be organised at local level by enterprising local parties. But the L G A C has already agreed that some initiative should come from Head Office. The Committee has already shown this with the production of the "Guide for the New Councillor and Candidate" which is in hand. (see RD 1 of June 1970). It ought to be feasible for us to organise a postal course, based on existing published material, to begin next autumn. We should consider a course for up to 500 students in England and Wales. (RD 1 notes that there are nearly 7000 Labour councillors in Britain). It would run from about November to March and each student would receive about eight papers, consisting of prescribed reading and questionnaire, covering the major local government topics: STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT
FINANCE HEALTH AND WELFARE HOUSING PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION TRANSPORT There is obviously scope for greatly extending the syllabus in future years...." RD 37 contains Evidence to the Finer Committee on One Parent Families. RD 65 finds that "the general pattern in the new London Boroughs appears to be that the Health, Welfare and Children Committees are all part of the Housing management teams dealing with tenants euphemistically called problem families...." ie: those most likely to be facing Court Orders for Possession (repossession of council homes). Ron Brown, M P comments on the failure to produce amending legislation covering the powers of local authorities to obtain Court Orders for Possession despite all the other significant changes made by the recent Labour Administration concerning Housing matters. He argues that Council Tenants should be better protected under the law. In RD 52 of January 1971 the Regional and Local Government Sub-Committee addresses the subject of "Finance of Council House Building" and the argument put forward by Mr Frank Allaun (M P for Salford East) that local authorities should "finance the building of council houses out of their own revenue, in order to relieve tenants and ratepayers of interest charges on long-term borrowing for house building". RD 12 sets out the Programme of Work for the Labour Party's Research Department following up the brief note in RD 5 which highlighted the need to undertake "a radical re-casting of the research programme now being undertaken by the Home Policy Committee and the Research Department". Key decisions after the electoral defeat in the summer of 1970 were postponed until after the summer break. By September 1970 the Research Department consisted of the Research Secretary and 11 Research assistants, one of whom was designated Local Government Officer. Full details of membership of existing Advisory Committees and Study Groups are given with a review of progress made and proposals for the way ahead. Suggested new areas for research outlined in the document include Mergers, the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Aircraft Industry, Disablement Benefits and crucial areas of political strategy such as the Structure of Government, Demand Management, Poverty and Broadcasting. RD 36 of December 1970 looks in detail at Multi-National Companies. RD 72 (revised in April 1971) contains the Draft Report of the Study Group on Immigration which runs to some 61 pages. This is typical of the wealth of detail in some of the Research Department Memoranda. Major issues coming to the fore in the Research Department Memoranda from April 1971 onwards include Britain and the EEC (RD 98, RD 146, RD 221, RD 243 and RD 259), Industrial Relations (RD 106, RD 110 and RD 227), Unemployment (RD 111, RD 128, RD 129 and RD 142), Care for the Elderly in the Community (RD 95, RD 119, RD 127 and RD 274), Housing (RD 208, RD 224, RD 236, RD 299, RD 300 and RD 301) and Education (RD 297, RD 306 and RD 307). The first revision of Priorities in Government - Labour's Aims for Britain (100 pp + xvi) is set out in RD 374. "We are a democratic Socialist Party, and proud of it. We put the principles of democracy and socialism above considerations of class and market economics. We aim to bring about a society based on co-operation instead of competition; where production is for people's needs not for private profit; where community care is capable of replacing individual self-help; where personal relationships are based on equality and international relationships on mutual respect for the principles we hold". The document goes on to set out Labour's aims - planning for full employment, high priority in public expenditure to the housing programme, improving industrial performance, redistributing wealth, substantial immediate increases for existing pensioners and other welfare beneficiaries plus a radical new earnings-related pensions plan, reform of the health services, benefits as of right for the disabled, a major new Education Act, a prices policy and a fresh approach to the relationship between government and industry stressing the qualitative aspects of growth. Comparison can be made with the Third Draft in RD 378 which has an additional 3 page Foreward which explains "Participation 72" and emphasizes grass roots involvement: "Policy in the Labour Party is made by the members". The text of the Foreward goes on to state: "We are publishing the document as a basis for discussion throughout the country in time for debate at our next Annual Conference. In part it is the result of work carried out in many Sub-Committees and Study Groups set up in recent years. In other parts it contains proposals from the uncompleted legislation of the last Labour Government. Where our policy work is incomplete, we have said so - and subsequent proposals will come at a later stage. In Chapter 10 we indicate that a major document on Foreign Policy will come next year. A few extremely important areas of policy - Northern Ireland being one, and the future of the House of Lords another - we have not felt it appropriate to make proposals here". "In preparing the document we were greatly helped by the 600 Labour Parties (and the 10,000 individual members involved) who met to complete our "Participation 72" exercise "Labour's Party Programme". They indicated to us several gaps in our work, and went on to indicate the degree of priority for studies now in hand..." A fourth draft, retitled Labour's Programme for Britain (RD 392) was presented for debate at the 1972 Annual Conference. Many Research Memoranda for 1973 contain amendments for Labour's Programme coming from M P's, Study Groups and Liaison Committees. In May 1973 there is a Revised Final Draft of a Green Paper on Capital and Equality produced by the Capital Sharing Study Group. This runs to 66 pages. (see RD 769 and RD 846). Another important document is RD 776 on financing Labour's Programme, which is followed in July 1973 by Labour's Programme: Financing the Expenditure by Denis Healey. (see RD 841). RD 776 is a lengthy document itemising the costings of the main commitments. RD 841 goes on to put the points covered in RD 776 into a sharper perspective so that decisions can be made about priorities. The section headed "Priorities" begins: "It will be seen from the above that the implementation of our expenditure objectives will present grave difficulties, even allowing for all the increases which could be expected in tax revenue". In conclusion, Healey argues: Wealth taxes, the removal of Tory concessions
to the rich, and the closing of tax loopholes, are unlikely to In this situation the National Executive
Committee must decide its basic priorities well before the next
RD 867, by Tony Benn, covers "The Working Methods of the Next Labour Government" for discussion by the Home Policy Committee. At the end of 1973 a campaign document entitled Labour's First Five Years was produced. See RD 920 for the various revisions of this. RES 49 of May 1974 contains a Draft Outline for the Manifesto for the October election; RES 130 of July 1974 provides a Revised Version. By 1973 and 1974 additional issues have come to the fore: eg: The North Sea Oil Question (see RD 587, RD 588 and RES 66) and The Coal Industry (see RES 40). Towards the end of 1973 the Conservative
Government entered into a bitter battle with the Trade Unions over
Stage Three of their counter-inflation policy. This conflict coincided
with the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war and subsequent oil embargo.
Oil prices went up. The Heath Government became locked into a head
on confrontation with the Miners, culminating in Heath's defeat
at the February 1974 General Election. Sterling Price: £790 - US Dollar Price: $1250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Labour History This final part of the microfiche project covers the Wilson and Callaghan administrations. Harold Wilson's final term as Prime Minister witnessed two of the most significant turning points in British politics since the Second World War. First, Edward Heath was replaced as conservative leader by Margaret Thatcher in February 1975. Second, Tony Benn launched his campaign to set Labour on an irreversible course towards socialism. Europe, inflation and unemployment continued as dominant problems. The economic outlook remained bleak with the Western world still in recession following the quadrupling of oil prices at the end of 1973. Price inflation in Britain was to rise to a peak of 25%. Another problem was the decline of British manufacturing coupled with anxiety over the Balance of Payments. Wilson was keen on proposals for the National Enterprise Board as a way to help industries with investment capital. These subjects feature heavily in the Research Department Memoranda. Economic weakness dominated the lifetime of Callaghan's Government. The IMF crisis in the second half of 1976 was followed by a period of difficult negotiations with the TUC. Trouble with the Trade Unions was never far away. When the Prime Minister returned from an international summit in the West Indies in early January 1979 he was confronted with hospital nurses, ambulance men and airline pilots on strike. Lorry drivers, tanker drivers, Ford car workers, local council manual workers and other industrial groups were also in disputes with their employers. Jim Callaghan's upbeat remarks at the airport gave rise to the newspaper headlines: "Crisis ? What crisis ?" The Callaghan Government also had contend with a constantly perilous parliamentary position. Callaghan never enjoyed an overall majority. The defection of two Labour MPs to the newly formed Scottish Labour Party, together with further by-election losses, deprived Labour of control the Commons. Scottish Nationalism seemed to be on the advance. Unemployment and industrial relations troubles in Scotland put the administration in a difficult corner. Many north of the border viewed "North Sea Oil" as "Scottish Oil". However, Callaghan was anxious to harness, if possible, any favourable circumstances flowing from "North Sea Oil" to restore the fortunes of the entire British economy. It was a vote on Scottish devolution which was to prove Labour's downfall in 1979. Labour were divided amongst themselves over direct elections to the European Parliament. Callaghan's last hope of clinging to office appeared to be refuge in form of the Lib-Lab Pact and protection against defeat in the Commons offered by the Liberal leader David Steel. Throughout these difficult times, the Labour Research Department continued its pivotal role in the synthesis of ideas and attitudes, the provision of information, and the shaping of documentation through to agreed statements of party policy. The range of issues dealt with will be borne out by any study of the Memoranda and Information Papers it contributed during these years. The documents also reveal many of the tensions within the Labour Party during this period. Scholars can investigate the background to key decisions. Many Committee sessions discussing policy issues and papers prepared by the Research Department became deadlocked with strongly held positions on both sides of any particular argument. How often did these disputes and problems, when the left of the party argued vigorously against more moderate colleagues, sway the balance of power on the National Executive or shape or influence crucial policy decisions over the longer term? The Labour Research Department serviced as its main function the National Executive Committee's Home Policy Sub-Committee. These documents allow scholars to study this process in detail. Sterling Price: £990 - US Dollar Price: $1650 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Labour History The Co-operative movement merits an important place in the Social History of Modern Britain and the history of the British working class. Numerous pioneering ventures - where groups of workers joined together to create shops, businesses, housing and welfare with a view to a common benefit - eventually merged into a vast trading concern owned and run by the people it served. It reached into all aspects of working class life, literally from the cradle to the grave. Woolwich features significantly in the history of co-operative action. The first Co-operative corn mill was founded there in 1760 (well before the births of Robert Owen (1771-1858) and George Holyoake (1817-1906), the founding fathers of the British Co-operative movement) and traded successfully for over 80 years. Less successful ventures included a Co-operative butcher's shop (1805-1811); the Woolwich Bakery Society (1842); a Co-operative Coal Society (1845); the Woolwich Co-operative Provident Society (1851); and the Woolwich and Plumstead Co-operative Society (1860). But these all showed that the idea of co-operative action was alive in Woolwich and paved the way for the establishment of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society [henceforth RACS] (founded in 1868 as the Royal Arsenal Supply Association, renamed as the RACS in 1872). The RACS was based on the practices and principles of the Rochdale Pioneers (1844ff) and was an immediate success. 20 people enrolled at their first meeting in November 1868, pledging to pay their £1 share. Alexander McLeod (1832-1902) was their first Chairman and William Rose (1843-?) - who worked in the Tool Room of the Shell Foundry at the Arsenal and had come up with the idea - was their first Secretary. Their first shop was based in a room in Rose's house and stocked tea, sugar, butter, and - later - bacon, coffee, spices and other goods. Rent and labour were given freely and the store soon showed a profit which was divided (the 'divi') between members in proportion to the amount which each had purchased. In 1869 the Government closed or moved many of the businesses in the area, prompting Rose to emigrate to Michigan, USA, surrendering his share. McLeod took over as Secretary and George H Bevan (1835-1909), another founder member, became Treasurer. The shop moved into rented space and expanded through the creation of a Christmas Club, a blanket club (both based on the idea of thrift - regular savings being set aside to pay for goods) and increased goods on offer. In 1873 the shop moved again to Powis Street (where it remains today, much enlarged) and commenced opening 4 evenings a week through the employment of a full-time shopman. By 1878 McLeod was able to give up his job at the Arsenal to become the Society's full-time Secretary and he continued in that role until his death in 1902. As Ron Roffey, historian and archivist of
the RACS, notes: "At its coming of age in 1889, the RACS was
the largest Society in the Southern section of the Co-operative
Union with nearly 7,000 members and an annual turnover of £126,000.
" From the earliest days it was remembered that Co-operation was not just about trading - there was a broader social dimension. They became an employer and job creator, establishing a bakery in 1876 and a milk delivery service from 1887. And from 1878 onwards the RACS allocated 2.5% of the trading profit for the education of members, by means of lectures, evening courses and the establishment of reading rooms and libraries above branch shops. Expansion continued with new branches in Plumstead (1880 and 1888), Erith (1882), Charlton (1887) and Lakedale Road (1896); and in 1896 the RACS was honoured by being asked to host the Co-operative Congress. A branch of the Women's Co-operative League was founded in Woolwich in 1883 and the first Congress of the Co-operative Women's Guild was held there in 1901. Another function of the RACS was the provision of good quality, affordable local housing. About 170 acres of land were acquired in 1886 and 1899 (the Bostall and Suffolk Place farms) and through the employment of c500 men the RACS created 420 homes by 1903 and nearly 1,000 by 1914. New employees and residents increased shop sales and the RACS continued to grow both through new branches and through the amalgamation of the East Greenwich, Walworth, Lambeth, Tooting, Wimbledon and Raynes Park Societies (all added in the period 1904-14). This extended the range of the Society through South-East and South-West London, and greatly increased its purchasing and employment power. Whilst the Co-operative movement was in many respects apolitical, the rise of the Labour Party at the beginning of the Twentieth Century drew it into the political arena. Woolwich was one of the first Parliamentary seats to fall to the Labour Representation Committee in March 1903 when Will Crooks, a popular cockney working man, won a straight fight against the incumbent Unionist candidate and the RACS adopted a pro-Labour stance. In 1908 local Conservatives showed their distaste for what they saw as the spread of socialism by setting up a rival society (the short-lived Imperial Co-operative Society, Woolwich, 1908-1921). In 1913 Henry J May (1867-1939), born in Woolwich, an engineer at the Arsenal, and an officer for the RACS had the distinction of being made Secretary of the International Co-operative Alliance in Geneva (a position he held until his death). May was also the first candidate chosen to stand for the Co-operative Party (founded 1917) although he was unsuccessful at the by-election in Prestwich in 1918. In 1922 the Political Purposes Committee was established to enable the Society to play an active role in the political life of the community. The minutes of this Committee (1922-1986) were filmed as Part 1 of this project and provide a detailed account of the political and educational work of the RACS. In 1919 the RACS had over 68,500 members and annual sales were over £23.5 million. Involvement in social housing continued with the acquisition of the 96 acre Well Hall Estate in Eltham in 1925 (c1,200 houses and flats) and 15 acres in the former Woolwich Royal Dockyard in 1926. A further 87 branches were established during the 1920's and 30's and a farm, an abbatoir, a dairy, new bakeries, a laundry, pharmaceutical stores, hairdressers and a funeral business were established. The RACS was also responsible for life insurance, benevolent funds, convalescent funds, benefit, thrift & savings clubs, a travel service, fuel delivery, removals, catering, and many other schemes and services. Despite this growth the 1920's and 30's were difficult years for working men and the RACS had an important role to play in making available cheap food and clothing. What is more, during the General Strike of 1926 they raised £12,000 for the relief of miners and their families. Their work in education also continued. The branch library in Eltham, for instance, was loaning out more than 500 books a month before its closure in 1929 (it was replaced by local authority libraries) and adult classes were being offered in Arts & Crafts and Social History. The local branches of the RACS also offered entertainment and social gatherings such as rambles, plays, talks, choral groups and dances. South East London was hit heavily during World War II, suffering considerable damage during the Blitz and beyond. But the RACS continued to grow and played a key role in rationing and educating the public about food production and consumption. In 1935 annual sales had reached £8.3 million, by 1945 they stood at £10 million. After the war the RACS followed retailing and shopping trends by moving towards larger stores operating on a self-service basis. Brand names and advertising became more important and competition from other supermarket chains increased. Substantial capital investment was made available to build and develop modern stores and a programme of rationalisation was started, leading to the closure of over 100 small shops. The 1960's and 70's saw a further wave of amalgamations with the addition of the Woking (1962), Godalming & District (1963), Haslemere & District (1965), Slough & District, Addlestone & District, Gravesend (all 1968), Faversham & Thanet (1969), Sheerness & District (1970), and Guildford & District (1971) societies. This further extended the range of the RACS into Hampshire, Berkshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex. In 1970 the RACS had over 500,000 members and annual sales of £43 million. By 1975 sales had risen further to £62 million making the RACS the second largest Co-operative society in the UK. Yet this was a turbulent period for trading. The introduction of a new decimal currency in Britain in 1971 and a new sales tax (Value Added Tax) in 1973 imposed new burdens on retailers who were also having to cope with rampant inflation (26% in 1975) and the abolition of Re-Sale Price Maintenance. Profit margins were severely eroded and it became clear that other retail chains were benefitting from the development of national networks and the economies of scale that ensued. As a result, the RACS merged with the Co-operative Wholesale Society [henceforth CWS] based in Manchester in 1985 (it retained its identity by becoming the South-East section, together with the Croydon Society). At this point, membership (which had become less attractive as the stores were open to all and the 'divi' had almost vanished) had fallen to 296,000, although annual sales had risen to £156 million. At a stroke the CWS became Britain's largest farmer and large food manufacturer, supplying goods to Britain's largest retailer, the Co-op. Political Purposes Committee Minutes Part 1 of this project contains the Minutes of the Political Purposes Committee from its first meeting on 18 March 1922 (proclaiming that it would "enable the Society to take a definite part in the political life of the community" ) to 7 November 1986. Until the 1970's the RACS was the only Co-operative Society to be affiliated to the Labour Party nationally. Furthermore, it provided a succession of distinguished representatives to the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) including J E Williams (1931-1947); Walter Green (1935-1947); Joseph Reeves (1947-1953); Arthur Skeffington (1953-1971) and John Cartwright (1971-1975 and 1976-1978). The RACS was also closely linked with the Labour Party at local and regional levels and helped to promote the discussion of political issues and the analysis of socialist principles by organising conferences and meetings. It also played a prominent part in education. Particular interest in the RACS Political Purposes Committee is due to the fact that Joseph Reeves, acting as Education Secretary from 1918 to 1938, was a pioneer of "Education for Social Change." This was a wide-ranging programme of working-class education promoting the adoption of a socialist approach to many issues. To quote Reeves: "Education has been used for all manner of purposes, some social, some anti-social. Education has been used to preserve social systems, as it has been used to overthrow them .... (We) must press forward with the work of preparing the minds of children, young people, grown-up men and women for vast social and economic changes, which the application of the principles of Co-operation to human affairs involves." (JOSEPH REEVES, Education for Social Change, RACS, 1936). Such educational schemes have been credited with increasing the profile of socialist policies to deal with issues such as unemployment and welfare benefit in the 1930's and 40's; they helped to put the provision of a National Health Service and Social Security benefits high on the agenda; and helped to create the climate which made possible the Labour Party's 1945 landslide victory. The Political Purposes Committee Minutes provide a clear picture of the strategies and policies of the RACS and its success in providing libraries, reading rooms and education classes. Subjects covered include: deputations to the Labour Party at all levels; local education and schooling; London County Council and Borough Council elections; national elections and political affiliations; political campaigns such as the "People's March for Jobs" with the TUC and the Labour Party; the Sunday Trading Debate; the banning of South African goods in Co-op stores; the banning of hunting on Co-op land; the promotion of Co-operative principles; maintaining or increasing Co-op membership; working with the local community. Other prominent political figures who have served on the Committee include Herbert Morrison, MP, Kate Hoey, MP, and Richard Balfe, MEP. The Committee changed its name in 1985 to become, simply, the Political Committee. General Committee Minutes Parts 2 - 4 provide virtually unbroken coverage of the General Committee Minutes of the RACS from July 1876 through to January 1985 (with small gaps in 1881-1882 and 1902). These are the central archival source for study of the RACS and are essential for any understanding of the diverse activities of this organisation. They describe its membership and trading activities, its educational role, the development of housing schemes, and its political role. They chart the rise of the RACS from the late 19th century through to the 1970's when it began to experience commercial difficulties. These minutes provide a useful case study for anyone wishing to study the growth of organised labour. They are a rich source for the Depression years of the 1920's and 30's and for the special strategies adopted to increase production during both World Wars when many Co-op employees had to leave their jobs to serve with the armed forces and the emergency services. The employment of women in these years is well documented, as are the difficulties posed when the wars ended and the RACS had to re-instate troops without being unfair to their loyal war workers. Special consideration was given to the position of single women and married women in these debates. Many of the themes of the post war years are expressed in a minute dated 7 November 1964 (Volume 116, p51148): "A letter from the Woolwich Labour Party was submitted.... (a) noting with satisfaction the programme of redevelopment and modernisation in which the RACS management is now engaged. (b) congratulating the Co-operative Movement in the recent agreement with Trade Unions on the principle of a five-day week in the distributive trades, and the RACS on the speedy implementation of the five-day week for shop workers. (c) calling on Labour Parties, Trades Councils, Local Authorities and Members of Parliament to support action to change the Shops Acts and local by-laws to make possible the full application of the five-day week to shop workers. (d) urging all members of the Labour Party and Trade Unions to increase their trade with the RACS and to support the Society in every way to enable it to carry out its current programme and successfully combat the growing tendency towrads monopoly organisation in retailing, which was noted." For the RACS was being torn in two directions. Firstly, through the post-war successes of the Labour Party and the increased power of the Unions, towards playing a bigger part in the local community, decreasing working hours and guaranteeing well-paid employment for all their staff. Secondly, through the pressure of increased competition, towards closing small local stores to build larger ones, opening for longer hours and employing less staff on a competitive basis. The subsequent amalgamation of the RACS with the CWS which is well documented in later volumes. The records provide an important basis for the study of working class life and organisation, Christian/philanthropic/utopian socialism, shopping and welfare. The General Committee Minutes for July 1876 - January 1931 appear in Part 2; and those for January 1931 - July 1970 appear in Part 3. Both are now available. Those for July 1970 - January 1985 will be published in 2000. We are very grateful for the assistance of Ron Roffey, Archivist and historian of the RACS, in the publication of this project. This note is largely based on three of his publications (all of which are reproduced on the first reel of Part 2: Looking Back... A Brief Historical Guide
to the Archives of the Co-operative Wholesale Society's South East
Retail Group Looking back at.......WOOLWICH: The
connection between the Woolwich Arsenal and the formation and early
days of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Ladies of Llangollen In 1778 Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby eloped to set up a new life together in Plas Newydd in Llangollen Vale. The move met with strong opposition from their respective families but their new Gothic residence soon became a magnet for writers and intellectuals. William Wordsworth, Anna Seward, Madame de Genlis, Edmund Burke and Hester Thrale all visited, and the 'Ladies of Llangollen' (as Butler and Ponsonby soon became known) established a widespread and vigorous correspondence network. The papers of the Ladies of Llangollen held at the National Library of Wales are a vital source to study this important partnership and the literary circle that they created. Known as the Hamwood Papers, formerly in the possession of the Hamilton family of Hamwood, Dunboyne, co Meath, they include: Papers and Correspondence of Elinor Goddard including an account of attempts by Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby to escape from their homes in Ireland, and accounts of Elinor Goddard's visits to the Ladies of Llangollen Sarah Ponsonby's "Account of a Journey in Wales perform'd in May 1778 by Two Fugitive Ladies" Eleanor Butler's Diary for 1784 including comments on letters received and books acquired and read Sarah Ponsonby's Commonplace Book (with gardening and architectural notes and verse in French, Italian and English) Eleanor Butler's famous Journals (six volumes in all, for 1788-1791, 1799, 1802, 1807 and 1821), which have been compared with Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, recording details of visitors, books read, medical recipes, correspondence and local events An apparently unpublished verse drama entitled "Loves Frenzy, or, the Garlands of the Faun", together with poems and watercolours, largely by Sarah Ponsonby A volume of manuscript poems compiled for Camilla Blackford A volume of manuscript poems dedicated to Caroline Hamilton A volume of manuscript poems composed by Mary Tighe Manuscript volumes concerning Geometry, Medicine, and Heraldry (and one on Napoleon) Two volumes of letters sent to the ladies including letters from Henrietta Bowdler, Edmund Burke, Lady Bury, George Canning, Jane Davey, Lady Fownes, Lady Sydney Morgan, Mrs O'Connell, Hester Piozzi, Sir Walter Scott, Anna Seward, Arthur Wellesley, William Wilberforce and William Wordsworth Two volumes of "Letters from a Traveller" dated recounting his experiences in Jerusalem and Paris, including a meeting with Napoleon The Plas Newydd Library Catalogue (137ff) comprising both a subject classification and a location list, provides insights into authors favoured and shows the considerable influence of continental literature. Autograph poetry by William Wordsworth (Sonnet ... composed in the grounds of Plas Newydd ), Felicia Hemans and Thomas Moore This source will be valuable for anyone writing on female friendships, the Gothic Pastoral Ideal, 18th Century Literary Circles and the Romantic Movement. It will be of interest to libraries supporting the study of Literature and Gender Studies. Sterling Price: £390 - US Dollar Price: $625 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page The Lady's Monthly
Museum, 1798-1828 Written by "a society of ladies" The Lady's Monthly Museum was published for thirty-one consecutive years (1798-1828) before it disappeared as a separate entity As such, it rivals both The Ladies Diary (1706-1840) (included in Part 2 of our Women Advising Women project) and The Lady's Magazine (1770-1832) (included in Parts 3 & 4 of our Women Advising Women project) in longevity and importance. A number of regular features make up a typical issue of The Lady's Monthly Museum. These include: Tales written to educate and entertain; Each issue is also accompanied by a detailed index (at the end of each volume) which greatly facilitates access. Part One of this microfiche edition covers the entire first series of this important journal. The ultimate demise of The Lady's Monthly Museum came in 1828 when it was merged with the older and more established The Lady's Magazine. A further merger took place in 1832 with La Belle Assemblee (and, in 1838, with The Court Magazine and Monthly Critic), and even though these journals continued to be printed at separate locations and to appear under their own titles for some time, their contents were identical. An important source for Women's and Gender Studies as well as literature. The Lady's Monthly Museum was a popular and successful journal, published during the same period in which Jane Austen's novels first appeared. It is easy to imagine one of these well written and elegantly produced volumes cradled in the hands of one of Austen's heroines - providing entertainment and education in equal measure. Sterling Price: £520 - US Dollar Price: $800 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page MacMillan Cabinet
Papers, 1957-1963 "As one of Britain's longest serving
Prime Ministers, Macmillan's record will be evaluated and re-evaluated
for decades; this project provides an essential tool for teachers
and researchers." MACMILLAN CABINET PAPERS, 1957-1963, on CD-ROM is a joint publication of the Public Record Office and Adam Matthew Publications Consultant Editors: The Macmillan CD-ROM provides historians and political scientists with direct access to documents from the highest level of Government during the Macmillan Administration, 1957-1963. These are an important source for world history as well as for British politics. They touch upon issues of African Independence, Anglo-American Relations, Asian Affairs, the Cold War, Commonwealth Development, European Integration, Race and the World Economy. Specific topics featured include: the aftermath of Suez and a new Middle East
policy, 1957-1963 There is correspondence and records of discussions with Acheson, Adenauer, Butler, Couve de Murville, de Gaulle, Diefenbaker, Douglas-Home, Dulles, Eisenhower, Harrod, Kennedy, Khrushchev, Lloyd, Macleod, Maudling, Menzies, Nash, Ormsby-Gore, Pearson, Rusk, Sandys, Spaak, Welensky and Whitehead; and much material concerning Banda, Castro, Gizenga, Lee Kuan Yew, Kaunda, Kenyatta, Nasser, Nyerere, Phouma, Phoumi and Rahman. The Macmillan CD-ROM provides complete coverage (nearly 12,000 pages) of the Cabinet Conclusions (Minutes) (CAB 128) and Memoranda (CAB 129), including recently released material. The Cabinet Conclusions are taken by the Secretary of the Cabinet or one of his assistants and comprise summaries of all discussions in Cabinet together with a note of decisions reached. Cabinet Memoranda consist of all papers circulated to members of the Cabinet and to other Ministers for information or as a basis for discussion. These classes provide a distillation of the work of all the other departments of government, ranging in subject matter from agricultural policy and trade, to nuclear policy and issues of international diplomacy. The Macmillan CD-ROM also offers unique access to 165 files (over 16,000 pages) from the Prime Minister's Private Office (PREM 11). These provide an important supplement to Cabinet Records and cover all aspects of policy making. They are particularly valuable in providing: Records of Meetings of Macmillan and other key Government figures with leading international statesmen. Correspondence with and memoranda from Government advisors, such as Philip de Zulueta, Burke Trend, Norman Brook and Timothy Bligh (Whitehall or Private Office staff), Robert Hall and Alec Cairncross (Government Economic Advisors), Roy Harrod (also on economic policy) and Solly Zuckerman (on nuclear affairs). More detail on key policies, such as "the Grand Design" on European and foreign policy, papers by Douglas-Home and Macleod on colonial policy in Africa, views on "The Future of Anglo-American Relations", and the drafting of Macmillan's "Wind of Change" speech. Discussions of the Annual Budget, including extensive correspondence with successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, and the Treasury. Files on "Ministers" which help to explain Cabinet reshuffles and illuminate crises such as the Vassall and Profumo scandals. Views from Conservative Party Central Office on image and presentation, and ways of making policies attractive to the electorate. Records of unofficial Cabinet Meetings, such as weekend sessions at Chequers to discuss Europe and the Commonwealth. Two volumes from PRO Class CAB 134 (Cabinet Committees) are also included featuring Minutes and Memoranda of the Colonial Policy Committee, 1957, and of a committee convened to discuss "Future Policy", 1959-1960. These are essential sources for the study of decolonisation, Commonwealth affairs, nuclear policy and foreign and defence policy. Accessing the Records There are three ways of accessing the records: Firstly, scholars can browse through expanded versions of the original PRO Class Lists as they would if they were working at the Public Record Office. These give an item by item description of each document included. Double clicking on the underlined document reference will call up the image. Secondly, they can browse through our new consolidated version of the original Annual Indexes of Cabinet Conclusions. This offers a broad view over all of the CAB 128 & CAB 129 documents. Thirdly, they can make use of the Recall Plus™ search engine which operates across the full text of the expanded Class Lists (with Additional Terms) and the consolidated Annual Index. The Search Screen will yield the number of hits for the requested search term, and will guide the reader to descriptions of just those documents, and then, if required, to images of the original documents. Full Boolean searching facilities are provided enabling scholars to refine searches. Prompt lists of "People" and "Subjects" suggest fruitful avenues to pursue. Manipulating the Images The facsimile images of the original documents can be manipulated in a number of ways. Simply double-clicking the right or left mouse button will increase or decrease the size of the image. Video buttons at the top of the screen make browsing through a document simple. It is also easy to print out copies of an entire run of documents or a single page. Sample Search Suppose that a researcher was interested in British views on American foreign policy. If they carried out a key word search on 'USA' this would yield 218 hits. In order to reduce this to a more manageable level, the researcher could add further search terms and search under ' USA and NUCLEAR WEAPONS.' This would yield 75 hits. To further refine the search the researcher could either add further terms such as 'CUBA' or 'not UK' . Adding 'CUBA' reduces the hits to 8 documents including: C (62) 166, a note by the Acting Secretary of the Cabinet on The Threat Posed by Soviet Missiles; PREM 11/3689, Prime Minister's file on the Cuban Missile Crisis; and PREM 11/3690, a further file on Cuba containing UN Security Council discussions and detailed telephone conversations between Kennedy and Macmillan. Essays There are four original essays by the Consultant Editors for this project concerning: Macmillan, the Conservative Party, and
the Challenges of Affluence, 1957-1963 - Mark Jarvis & Professor
John Turner These essays help to introduce the main themes of the period and provide direct hypertextual links to a number of important documents. They will be of particular use to undergraduates, helping to highlight key issues and events, and illustrating how the primary sources can be employed to back up an argument. The essays will provoke discussion and suggest a range of suitable topics for undergraduate project work. Technical Details System Requirements: The Recall Plus software is the property of Insoft (Holdings) Ltd, 14 John Street, Bristol BS1 2HR, England (tel: 0117 934 9812; fax: 0117 925 3374). Windows and Windows 95 are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. Datagold (tel: 0117 934 9812) provide technical support to purchasers of this CD-ROM and can also provide instructions for networking. The Macmillan CD-ROM will enable scholars to understand the workings of British Government and will introduce undergraduates to the principles of working with primary sources from the Public Record Office. It will cast new light on Britain's relationship with the EEC, Anglo-American ties, the Cold War, Decolonisation, and issues of Public and Political Morality. Sterling Price: £2950 - US Dollar Price: $4950 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Martineau: The
Collected Writings of Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) This collection of Martineau's printed works is designed as a complement to the publication of her manuscript papers. It makes available complete first editions of her 52 printed works including: Deerbrook: a novel (3 vols, 1889) 'A remarkable woman and a pioneer of middle class radicalism, Martineau is a crucial nineteenth century literary figure. This collection should prove essensial for both Women's Studies and literature courses.' These volumes reveal the many facets of Harriet Martineau's writing. Many of them are extremely rare and have been out of print for many years. Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Masculinity,
1560-1918: Men Defining Men Great use has been made by scholars of advice literature over the past decade. In particular, prescriptive literature for women has been used in the classroom and for research, to explore the changing role of women from the medieval period through to the modern day. Now, with the broadening of Gender Studies, we are pleased to offer a collection of rare advice books, manuals and literary texts relating to Masculinity, 1560-1918. Men have often been regarded as the constant against which women's evolution has been charted. In particular, the model of patriarchal society has found an established, but not unchallenged, position in the literature. There is now a growing debate concerning the roles of men, masculinity and sexual politics and the complexities and contradictions of these concepts. The materials presented here will help to fuel the debate and will enable scholars to analyse such stereotypes as the cad, the weakling, the sadist, the cross-dresser, the lothario, the lady's man, the brute and the gentleman. Part 1 comprises c100 core texts from the collections of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It features: Descriptions of the chivalric ideal in texts such as Castiliogne's The Courtyer (1561), Calahorra's Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood (1598), Primaudaye's The French academie (1589) and broadsides like The Noble Gallant (c1670). Early advice books including A Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman leaving the University, concerning his behaviour in the World (1671), The father's legacy: or Counsels to his children (1678), William Darrell's A Gentleman Instructed in the Conduct of a Virtuous and Happy Life (1704), The Gentleman's library, containing rules for conduct in all parts of life (1715), Defoe's The Compleat Gentleman (c1728), The man of manners: or, Plebian ploish'd, rules for modest and genteel behaviour (1735), Thoughts on Gallantry, Love and Marriage (1754), The polite academy (1771), John Andrews' Letters to a Young Gentleman setting out for France (1784) and Kenelm Digby's The Broad Stone of Honour, or Rules for the Gentlemen of England (1822). Victorian concepts of manhood are presented in The golden rules of life (1835), Advice to a young gentleman, on entering society (1839), the Rev Hugh Stowell Brown's Manliness (a lecture delivered before the YMCA, 1857), How to behave (1879), Manners and tone of good society (1879), Thomas Hughes' Notes for Boys (and their fathers) on Moral, Mind and Manners (1885), and Charles Noakes' Confidential Talks to Men (1911). The power of education to shape gender roles is shown in Gilbert Burnet's Thoughts on Education (1668), John Clarke's An Essay on the Education of Youth in Grammar Schools (1720), Thomas Sheridan's A Plan for the Education of the Young Nobility and Gentry (1769), George Chapman's A Treatise on Education (1773), The Eton system of education vindicated (1834), and The book of Rugby School: It's history and its daily life (1856). Other concepts explored and documented include Heroes & Role Models, the Boy Scout movement, 'manly' sports, Trade & the Professions, Clubs & Societies, Courting, Man as Husband & Father, and Health & Appearance. There are also useful comparisons between Masculinity in Britain and France. Sterling Price: £1560 - US Dollar Price: $2500 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Mass Observation
Archive Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Mass Observation
Archive Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Mass Observation
Archive Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Mass Observation
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Archive Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Medieval & Renaissance
Literary Manuscripts from the John Ryland University Library of
Manchester The John Rylands University Library of Manchester was built in 1890-1899 as a memorial to John Rylands, a Wigan based cotton magnate and philanthropist. The acquisition in 1901 of more than 6,000 manuscript volumes from the Bibliotheca Lindesiana assembled by the 25th and 26th Earls of Crawford and Balcarres quickly transformed it into a research library of truly international status. A further 3,000 manuscripts were acquired by 1921 and the collections continue to be added to. The manuscripts are arranged in a number of series according to language. We now offer a choice selection of 140 medieval and renaissance literary manuscripts. They provide a cross section of the literary styles and traditions of England, France and Italy between the 8th and 17th centuries. Part 1 offers vernacular manuscripts in
English, French, Italian and Spanish. These include: Sermons are now being used by literary scholars
and social historians as well as theologians and ecclesiastical
historians as they do provide many insights into the preoccupations
of the medieval and early modern periods. Nineteen manuscript collections
of sermons are included here, spanning from a 12th/13th century
manuscript from Rievaulx Abbey containing the centum sententia
et sermones by Walter Daniel (Lat Ms 196; Part 2) to two collections
of 17th century sermons by Benn (delivered 1661-2) and Freake (Eng
Mss 960 and 1158). The cross-fertilisation of European literary traditions is will illustrated by two of the most frequently consulted volumes in the collection. Guido delle Collone's Troy Book (Lat Ms 351 15thC; Part 2) was the source for Lydgate's 30,000 line Siege of Troy (Eng Ms 1, 15thC). The latter is beautifully illustrated. John Lydgate (c1370-1449) is also represented by The Fall of Princes (Eng Ms 2, 15thC) adapted from Boccacio. For Geoffrey Chaucer (c1343-1400) there are two 15th century manuscripts. Eng Ms 113 presents a full text of the Canterbury Tales and Eng Ms 63 is an important fragment of the Miller's Prologue. Another treasure to savour is a 14th century manuscript of the Sonetti e canzoni (It Ms 1) by Petrarch (1304-74) and there are three manuscript versions of The Divine Comedy by Dante (It Mss 2,3 & 49). There are also La Scala del Paradiso by San Giovanni Climaco and Fioretti and the legend of St Clare by San Francesco. Romance and Chronicle Literature are difficult to separate. Romances were the novels of their age, containing the daring and chivalric exploits of popular heroes, whilst Chronicles claimed a more factual base. Both genres are well represented in the collection. There are six texts of the Brut (Eng Mss 102-105 and 206-207) which starts with an account of the settlement of Britain by Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas, and proceeds through the reigns of Gorbuduc, Lud, Cymbelene and Arthur. Other sources for Arthurian scholars are Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (Lat Ms 216, 13thC; Part 2); and Lancelot du Lac (Fr Ms 1, c1300). Further items include: L'Histoire des Ducs de Normandie/Roys d'Angleterre (Fr Ms 56); Chronicon Angliae (Fr Ms 64, 13thC); Grandes Chroniques de France (Fr Ms 62, 15thC); De Monstrelet's Chroniques (Fr Ms 55, 15thC); Noel de Fribois' Chronique (Fr Ms 57, 15thC); the Cronicas de Espana (Sp Ms 1) and Jean de Meung & Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de La Rose (Fr Ms 66, 15thC). Other valuable French manuscripts are La Boucacherdiere by De Courcy and Biblee Historee. Poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries can be found in commonplace books (Eng Ms 202, owned by Robert Hassal; Eng Ms 410; Eng Ms 521, featuring Cavalier poems; Eng Ms 878, entitled The Royalist's Letany; and Lat Ms 249). An important biographical source is Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More (Eng Ms 875, 17thC). We have also included an interesting sheaf of drawings by Wenceslaus Hollar (Eng Ms 883), famous for his portrayal of Shakespeare's London. This valuable collection of English, French and Italian manuscripts will add lustre to the research potential of any library. It is especially important for those interested in studying comparative literary traditions across Europe, the Bible as Literature, and the writings of Chaucer, Dante, Lydgate, Petrarch and Wyclif. April 2000 Sterling Price: £1700 - US Dollar Price: $2750 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page Middle East Politics
and Diplomacy, 1904-1956 T E Lawrence, descibing Storrs in Seven Pillars of Wisdom "Sir Ronald Storrs belongs in the
pantheon of noteworthy leaders of the British Empire .... In 1909,
he became Oriental Secretary at the British agency in Cairo serving
first under Sir Eldon Gorst and then under Lord Kitchener and Sir
Henry McMahon. Here he was able to distinguish himself, to use his
keen intellect and knowledge of colloquial Arabic to good effect
as the consumate Near East hand. When war came in 1914, Storrs became
involved in the negotiations with Sherif Hussein, later King Hussein.
... During World War One, Storrs served as a political officer with
the Anglo-French Expeditionary Force, an assignment which took him
to Baghdad. Late in 1917, he then served briefly with the secretariat
of the British War Cabinet before being appointed to the newly created
position of governor of Jerusalem." "Storrs, who served as first British
governor of Jerusalem, from 1917 to 1926, was a witty, feline character
who declared himself 'anima naturaliter Levantina'. Unusual among
mandatory officials in being an intellectual show-off, he was regarded
by colleagues as being too clever by three quarters, by Arabs as
a poseur who pretended to know more Arabic than he did, and by Jews
as an untrustworthy hypocrite. They were all right. But Storrs was
a superb writer, more readable - and far more accurate as a guide
through the Anglo-Arab labyrinth - than that genuine poseur, his
friend T E Lawrence." The publication of the Papers of Sir Ronald Storrs on microfilm is a major event for Middle Eastern studies. An important and controversial figure in the Middle East in the first half of the Twentieth Century, Storrs was a renowned expert on Arab and Zionist affairs. So far scholars have only had access to his memoir, Orientations, published in 1937. Gracefully written, this showed his powers of observation and his sensitivity to different viewpoints. Now scholars can have access to the great storehouse of knowledge on which his memoir was based - his extensive diaries, weekly letters home and his correspondence with major figures. These sources describe the events, and the manoeuverings behind the events, in Middle Eastern Politics and Diplomacy between 1904 and 1950. Storrs' own observations are enriched by letters from Amir Abdullah, Allenby, Leo Amery, Gertrude Bell, Norman Bentwich, Bernard Berenson, Violet Bonham-Carter, Curzon, King Faizal, Prince Ibrahim Hilmi, Sharif Hussein, Kitchener, T E Lawrence, Rose Macauley, Milner, Nashab Pasha, Sirri Pasha, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Samuel, Ethel Smythe, Arnold Toynbee, Robert Vansittart, Chaim Waizmann and others. The papers describe in detail the various troubled areas in which Storrs served: EGYPT, 1904-1917. Storrs began his career in the Egyptian Civil Service, holding a variety of posts before his appointment as the Oriental secretary ("the eyes, ears, interpretation and intelligence" of the Consul) under Gorst, Kitchener and McMahon. He was present at the time that the Coptic premier was assassinated, during the ministerial crisis of 1914, and played a major role in steering Egypt away from Turkish or German alliances during World War I. WITH LAWRENCE OF ARABIA DURING THE ARAB REVOLT, 1914-1917. Storrs was involved in the planning and diplomacy that preceded the Revolt in the Desert, shuttling back and forth between Sharif Zaid, Aziz al-Masri, Sharif Abdullah, King Faisal and King Hussein. He gathered intelligence in Hejaz, Jeddah, Cairo, Aden, Basra, Baghdad, Muscat, Oman and Kuwait and it was during this period that he became a close friend of T E Lawrence. JERUSALEM, 1917-1926. From 1917 to 1920 Storrs served as Military Governor in Jerusalem; and from 1920 to 1927 he was Civil Governor of Jerusalem and Judea. He was present at the time of the "Balfour Declaration," during the 1921 riots, and when King Faisal was expelled from Syria. He attempted to unite Arabs and Jews and brought together The Mufti of Jerusalem and Musa Kazem Pasha al Husseini with Theodore Herzl and Chaim Weizmann. He also promulgated the work of the Pro-Jerusalem Society, bringing together hostile groups to safeguard antiquities. CYPRUS, 1926-1932. Storrs was appointed Governor of Cyprus in 1926 and gained early popularity by engineering the cancellation of the Cypriot share of the Turkish debt. Tensions soon resurfaced, with the Enosis movement pressing for unification with Greece, and both Greeks and Turks protesting at his attempts to keep religion out of education. Anti-British sentiments were symbolised by the burning of Government House in 1931, destroying his library and art collection. NORTHERN RHODESIA, 1933-1934. At the expiry of his normal term of Governorship in Cyprus, Storrs was appointed Governor of North Rhodesia. He organised the building of a new capital in Lusaka and toured Barotseland, Congo, South Africa and Zanzibar, before retiring due to ill health. TOURIST, LECTURER AND MIDDLE EAST COMMENTATOR, 1934-1950. After he had regained his health, Storrs pursued an active retirement - writing, lecturing and travelling the world. His diaries describe visits to Tunisia, Canada, USA, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Balkans, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, Libya, Abyssinia, and Sudan. There is a fine World War II diary, and he kept in touch with Arab opinion through meetings with Ibn Saud, Aga Khan, King Faisal, Aziz al-Masri, Prince Muhammed Ali, Albert Hourani and King Abdullah. Storrs' letters and diaries are frank and informative, free of the certainties of retrospective analysis. They reveal his love of art and antiquities, his sympathies with Arabic views, his belief in the right of Israeli self-determination and his disenchantment with colonialism. They are an essential source for anyone studying Middle East relations, 1904-1950, and World History. Sterling Price: £2000 - US Dollar Price: $3250 Adam Matthew Publications Home Page
2003/4 | Earlier publications: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
September 2002 |
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