A GIFT TO THE BODLEIAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 26, 28 December 1932, Page 8

A GIFT TO THE BODLEIAN.

THE NORTH PAPERS. FAMILY RECORDS OF 300 YEARS. The discovery of a collection of important historical material is in those days a comparatively rare event. The papers of the North family, which have been gratefully accepted by the University of Oxford as a gilt to the Bodleian ‘ Library from the Pilgrim Trustees, will he recognised by historians as an exceptionally varied and valuable accession. By saving the collection from dispersion and rendering it permanently available, the Pilgrim Trust (the London Times says) has once again preserved a national asset at a time when the liberality of inuividual benefactors is perforce severely limited.

Successive generations of Norths have not only exhibited a faculty for achieving prominence, and often distinction. in public affairs, but have also consistently refrained from destroying either their correspondence or the numerous official documents that came their way. The resulting accumulation, hitherto unrecognised and unused, constitutes a voluminous record of English life from the time of Henry VIII. to that of Victoria. The slow changes in manners and standards—the very stuff of a nation’s history—are here set out by a succession of well-informed and unself-conscious letter-writers.

The Tudor period is represented (apart from a number of State papers) by inventory and commonplace books, letters relating to the management of the family estates in Oxfordshire and elsewhere, and others referring to local politics. Here and there the reader is reminded of the great events that were taking place outside this rural world, as, lor example, by “The muster of Horses at Lettesliam Beacon,” signed on August 24, 1534, by the Roger North who subsequently followed Ralegh to Guiana.

With tho seventeenth century the volume of material increases. Little of the Civil War period appears to have survived: but during the eighteenth century the fortunes of the family were at the'ir zenith, and the wealth and variety of the records are correspondingly large. National affairs are illustrated by a large number of letters written in Spain and Flanders during tho Marlborough campaigns, including eight holographs from the Duke himself. THE PENINSULAR WAR. Somewhat surprisingly, the most important ’’find’’ occurs in the papers of the nineteenth century, and consists of the military papers oi certain members of the Doyle lamily, who were connected by marriage with the Norths. Among the papers of no fewer than four generals of the name, by far the most important are those of General Sir Charles William Dovle (1770 — 1542), which consist of approximately 1000 documents relating to the Peninsular War. They include dispatches from Welleslev, correspondence from tiie Spanish Government and local officials, marching orders, a manuscript journal of the campaigns with sketch map, and a series of letter-books, which contain such items as "Proposals to the Junta upon the apparent move of Victor's army in pursuit of Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1809.’’

Of the State Papers contained in the collection it is difficult to give a description which is at once adequate and brief. There are some Tudor documents, and rather a greater number referring to the administration of the Navy and the Royal Household under James 1., but the "bulk of the material relates to the eighteenth century. Here is to be found a mass of official data, evidently collected by the Earl of Bute (whose son married a North heiress) and Lord North, and illustrating almost every phase of commercial and financial administration. There is also much valuable material relating to British policy and conduct, during and at the close of the Seven Years’ War.