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Burndy Library
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Research Materials in British History
Medieval: The Library has
records unequaled in the United States for the study of medieval English
history. The Battle Abbey Papers contain an outstanding series of monastic
accounts and records. The Hastings Papers include 3,500 deeds and 200
court rolls and accounts for Leicestershire and elsewhere. The Stowe Collection
has early Grenville deeds, mostly for Buckinghamshire. The Ellesmere Collection
includes deeds, court rolls, and accounts, largely for Cheshire and the
Northwest. The Library also has over 300 individual medieval volumes of
historical, literary, and religious texts. The rare books are outstanding:
for example, the collection includes 5,400 British and continental incunabula
(several hundred of them unique in the United States).
16th Century: The Hastings correspondence
includes letters of national and local importance (e.g., from Cardinal
Pole, Queen Elizabeth, and the 3rd Earl of Huntington). The Ellesmere
Collection is rich in legal and political material. The Library has estate
and local records (deeds, accounts, court rolls) for the entire century
and monastic accounts up to the Dissolution. The Library has one of the
strongest collections in the world of books printed in England before
1641; all of the standard historical texts and atlases are present in
first and later editions, along with many yearbooks, proclamations, and
some 5,000 continental books.
17th Century: The Ellesmere Collection provides a
great variety of material in the letters and papers of Egerton and the
Earls of Bridgewater. The Hastings Papers include 4,000 English and 2,000
Irish letters. The Stowe Collection includes rich material on the Temple
family in the 17th century. Manuscript and printed material on the Civil
War, Cromwell, non-conformists, Puritanism, and British colonial interests
is plentiful. The printed book collection is very strong, particularly
for the early part of the century; well over 40,000 books printed in England
from 1475 to 1700 are present. There is an extensive collection of newsletters
and news-papers, original and in microfilm.
18th Century: The Brydges Papers include
70 letterbooks of James, 1st Duke of Chandos, and the Grenville Papers
have the correspondence of George Grenville, Prime Minister, and of his
sons. Significant materials on Ireland and several groups of military
and naval papers of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras are present.
Diplomatic papers include Sir George Yonge's official correspondence as
Secretary at War, the Hamilton-Greville letters, and those of Sir Robert
Murray Keith from Vienna. The Loudoun Collection contains 7,500 Scottish
papers covering Jacobite troubles and estate matters, while the Hastings
correspondence includes 2,000 18th-century letters. There are many estate
records for the entire century. The collection of 30,000 18th-century
titles is perhaps the largest in the United States.
19th Century: The Grenville Papers
contain political correspondence of the early part of the century and
extensive estate and legal records throughout the century. The Hastings
Collection has 7,000 letters from the period, including a series from
India. Papers of social reformers include Richard Carlisle, Thomas Clarkson,
Francis Power Cobbe, Zachary Macaulay, and John Ruskin. Political correspondence
ranges from Wellington to Henry Bruce, Baron Aberdare. The collection
of printed books is substantial for the first half of the century; for
later, the reference holdings are stronger than the rare book collections.
Reference Collection
The extent of the source
material within the reference collection can only be suggested by a few
examples. The Calendars of State Papers, Reports of the Historical Manuscripts
Commission, Journals of the House of Lords and of the Commons, and Hansard's
Debates are virtually all present, along with the catalogs of MS collections
in most British libraries. The Library has all, or nearly all of the publications
of such societies and clubs as the Roxburghe, Camden, Selden, Surtees, Hakluyt,
Navy Records, Spalding, Bannatyne, Maitland, and Pipe Roll. There are complete
files of Archaeologia, the Rolls Series, the Patrologia, and
similar publications. There is an extensive collection of the publications
of the county historical and local record societies.
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