Category Archives: Newly available (2025)

The archive of the Greene Family now available

20th century, Cataloguing, Humanities, Modern, Newly available (2025), Newly available (2025), Women, ,

The catalogue for the archive of the Greene family is now available, with material ready for consultation in the Weston Library. The archive largely comprises personal correspondence and photographs belonging to Graham Carleton Greene, CBE, publisher, and his mother, Helga Mary Connolly (née Guinness, other married name Greene), literary agent.

Helga Greene, c. 1930s. © Courtesy of Alexander Greene.
Helga Mary Connolly, 1916-1985

Helga Mary Connolly was born to Henry Samuel Howard Guinness and Alfhild Holter. She married her first husband Sir Hugh Carleton Greene in 1934, the couple had two sons, Graham C. and James C. Greene. Following their divorce in 1948, she opened the Helga Greene Literary Agency in 1952, which operated from Eaton Mews West in the house adjoining her own home. Her literary consultant, Kathrine Sorley Walker, later wrote in Remembering Helga, (1987) that Helga considered her agency ‘a small and very personal literary agency.’1 The agency represented authors including American mystery writer Raymond Chandler (from 1957), Austrian artist and poet Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Crossman M.P. and zoologist Lancelot Hogben (from 1953). Helga was engaged to Raymond Chandler upon his death in 1959, inheriting his literary estate and would become the authority on permissions for adaptations of his works.

Her personal papers primarily consist of correspondence with her first husband, the broadcaster Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, brother of the writer Graham Greene. The earliest letters derive from their engagement whilst living in Berlin in 1934. The letters also provide coverage of family life during a period of upheaval in Europe, after their expulsion from Berlin in 1939 (Hugh C. Greene was the Daily Telegraph’s Berlin Correspondent from 1938). The family was separated for periods of time, owing to Sir Hugh’s work in the RAF and as Head of the BBC German Service, MS. Greene family 1. A portion of the papers concern personal letters from members of the theatrical and literary community such as Tove Jansson, C.P. Snow, Mary Norton and Ivor Novello, MS. Greene family 3-4. The main business papers and correspondence of the Helga Greene Literary Agency are catalogued with the archive of Raymond Chandler.

Graham Carleton Greene CBE, 1936-2016

The bulk of the papers in the archive belong to Graham Carleton Greene, CBE who held the position of managing director of the publishing house Jonathan Cape from 1966-1988. Alongside an influential career in publishing, the papers and correspondence cover decades of involvement with numerous charitable organisations and cultural institutions. Graham was actively involved in shaping organisations including the Publishers Association (President, 1977-1979), Statesman and Nation Publishing Company (Chairman, 1981-1985), GB-China Centre, (Chairman, 1986-1997) and the British Museum (Chairman, 1996-2002). By this point, he had been a trustee of the museum for 24 years (from 1978-2002). During his tenure as chairman of the British Museum, he was involved with the redesign of the Great Court, with it opening in December 2000.

Outside of his professional life, Graham’s extensive personal correspondence spans six decades, and includes letters from a range of friends, particularly those who were extended hospitality at dinner parties arranged by him and his wife Sally. Literary dinners and parties were also thrown in celebration of new publications, including for a biography by Anthony Howard of his mother’s former client and friend, Richard Crossman M.P., MS. Greene family 39.

From left: Graham, Helga, Hugh and James Greene. © Courtesy of Alexander Greene.

Several boxes of family photographs provide a snapshot of the life of the Greene family over many decades, with Helga and Hugh’s life in 1930s Germany, family holidays in the 1940s and Graham and James’s Eton schooldays in the 1950s all featuring. Photographs of Graham’s later travels to China are also included, MS. Greene family photogr. 5. He would go on to visit the country on multiple occasions and work to establish copyright treaties whilst chairman of the GB-China Centre in 1991.

The Bodleian Libraries also hold the papers of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene and the archive of Vivien Greene.

Sources:

  1. Remembering Helga, (1987). MS. Chandler 39 ↩︎

Catalogue of the Dictionary of Medical Eponyms by Austin Seckersen is now available

20th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Modern, Newly available (2025), Newly available (2025), Sciences,

This collection comprises material collected by Seckersen for a dictionary of medical eponyms. The dictionary was never published. It also includes a set of glass negatives of portraits of those whose names have been used as an eponym.

Catalogue of the Dictionary of Medical Eponyms by Austin Seckersen

The catalogue of the archive of F.W. Hirst is now available

20th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Newly available (2025)

Francis Wrigley Hirst (1873-1953) was a journalist who wrote for numerous publications, including The Speaker, The Manchester Guardian, The Tribune, and The Nation. He was chief editor of The Economist from 1907 until 1916. Due to his outspoken campaigning during wartime, where he published numerous pieces against conscription, on irresponsible war finance, and on the threat the war posed to civil liberties, he was forced to resign. In 1916, he set up his own paper, Common Sense, which was devoted to a negotiated peace, retrenchment, and the economy. In 1921, Common Sense was discontinued, and as Hirst’s influence within liberalism waned, he drew his attention to giving lectures in South Africa, Austria, and widely in the United States. Hirst unsuccessfully stood for Parliament as a Liberal in 1910 and 1929, and in June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council. Hirst wrote extensively about Adam Smith, William Ewart Gladstone, and John Morley. He died in 1953 of influenza, and a book titled F.W. Hirst By his Friends was published in his remembrance in 1958.

The archive comprises diaries, working and personal correspondence, literary and political papers, and press cuttings both by and of Francis W. Hirst.

Catalogue of the archive of Francis W. Hirst

The catalogue of the archive of Terence Ranger is now available

20th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Newly available (2025)

Terence Osborn Ranger (1929-2015) was a historian of African history. While working at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, he was horrified by the colour bar and, alongside his wife, became active in politics both inside and outside of the university. He was denied citizenship, possibly due to his political associations, and was declared a prohibited immigrant in 1963. He began working at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the pioneering African history department. During his time at Dar es Salaam, he wrote several books, including Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896–7 (1967) and Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890–1970 (1975). In 1969 he moved to the University of California at Los Angeles as a professor and then in 1974 he moved to the University of Manchester as chair of modern history. During his time at Manchester, he began to introduce African history into the curriculum. Ranger was the Rhodes chair of race relations and a fellow at St Antony’s, Oxford, from 1987 until his retirement in 1997. He returned to Zimbabwe to teach at the University of Zimbabwe as a visiting professor (1998-2001) and spent time researching for his book Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893–1960 (2010).

The archive comprises working papers and correspondence, including material related to: academic appointments, research on African politics and history, and societies Ranger was associated with.

Catalogue of the archive of Terence Ranger

The catalogue of the archive of Thomas Lionel Hodgkin is now available

20th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Newly available (2025)

Thomas Lionel Hodgkin (1910-1982) was a historian of African history. He spent time in Palestine, in a cadetship in the Palestine civil service, which made him very aware of the nature of Western and British imperialism. After he resigned, he wanted to stay to observe the aftermath of the April 1936 Arab uprising but was made to leave by the British administration. He returned to Britain in 1936 and joined the London Library and the Communist Party. He met his wife, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, in 1937 when she was in London to photograph insulin at the Royal Institute.

He worked for the Workers’ Educational Association in north Staffordshire and, in September 1945, he became secretary of the Oxford University delegacy for extra-mural studies which took him to the Gold Coast and Nigeria in 1947. This began his interest in African history, and he wrote for West Africa on the background to African nationalism. After leaving the delegacy in 1952, he travelled extensively in Africa. He published his book Nationalism in Colonial Africa in 1956, before turning to the subject of Islam in Africa. He worked in several universities in America and Canada, and became director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in 1962. He became a senior research fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, and lecturer in the government of new states in 1965, where he supervised students from many countries. He published several books during his life, including Perspectives (1960), African Political Parties (1961), and Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path (1981). He also wrote an unpublished novel titled ‘Qwert’.

The archive comprises: Academic papers, including lecture notes and papers on African history; correspondence, including from his family and wife, D.M.C. Hodgkin; literary papers including unpublished novels; and personal papers.

Catalogue of the archive of Thomas Lionel Hodgkin

The Peter Tatchell archive

20th century, 21st century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, LGBT+ History Month, Modern, Newly available (2025), Social Sciences, , ,
Peter Tatchell in front of an LGBTQ+ rainbow flag, carrying an A2-sized white sign that says Freedom, Justice, Peace, Equality
Photograph provided by the Peter Tatchell Foundation, © Peter Tatchell

The catalogue of the archive of human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell (b.1952) is now available.

Tatchell is best known for his LGBTQ rights advocacy. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, and emigrated to London in 1972, where he quickly became involved with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In 1973 he was the GLF’s delegate to the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, where he distributed leaflets in support of gay liberation inside the German Democratic Republic. In 1986 Tatchell published a pioneering self-help book, AIDS: A Guide to Survival [find in the SOLO catalogue] and was a founding member of the UK AIDS Vigil Organisation and the UK chapter of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).

In May 1990, Tatchell was one of the founding members of the campaign group OutRage! (founded in reaction to the homophobic murder of actor Michael Boothe). OutRage! became well-known for their non-violent, direct-action protests opposing discrimination against gays and lesbians in the United Kingdom. Activists were frequently arrested and prosecuted for their protests, with Tatchell notably fined under the obscure Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act (1860) for interrupting the Archbishop of Canterbury during his 1997 Easter sermon. Tatchell also made multiple attempts to arrest Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, for human rights violations.

In 2011, OutRage! ceased operations and Tatchell founded The Peter Tatchell Foundation, a non-profit whose work seeks to promote and protect human rights in the UK and internationally.

In addition to his campaign work, Tatchell fought a number of parliamentary campaigns. In 1983 he ran as the Labour Party’s candidate in the Bermondsey constituency by-election, in 2000 he was an independent candidate for the Greater London Assembly, and in 2007 he was the Green Party’s candidate for Oxford East.

The archive mainly comprises Tatchell’s working papers for his protest and political campaigns, including research materials and protest ephemera (including a set of photographs of OutRage! protests by Steve Mayes), as well as papers relating to Tatchell’s journalism and travel writing. The catalogue is a first edition and additional protest ephemera and objects will be added following conservation work.