Manuscripts
Reports of the British Records Association and the National Building Record
You might also be interested in
Image not available
National Building Record and Georgian Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings (SPAB)
Manuscripts
Typescript and manuscript agendas, reports, minutes, and correspondence for both organizations. Katharine Esdaile served on committees of both organizations and was particularly active during WWII.
mssEsdaile
Image not available
National Buildings Record. Exhibition of photographs and drawings of English architecture, National Gallery June-July, 1944 (London: The Arts Council of Great Britain)
Manuscripts
This collection contains the papers of English art historian Katharine Ada Esdaile (1881-1950), with the bulk of the materials relating to her research and writings on British monumental sculpture, sculptors, and church monuments from the medieval period to 19th century. Material types include personal writings, diaries, correspondence, business papers, family papers and photographs, research files and research notebooks, and miscellaneous published and unpublished materials. Notably the collection includes more than 600 chiefly pre-World War II visitor booklets and pamphlets produced locally by British churches and approximately 3500 photographs taken or collected by Esdaile of sculpture, often funerary monuments in English churches, ranging from large churches like Westminster Abbey to small rural parishes. This collection provides a resource for viewpoints on monumental sculpture in the early 20th century (for instance as represented in book reviews by Esdaile) and for information about Esdaile's experience as a woman art historian in the early 20th century. Given the broadness of Esdaile's scope, from medieval to 19th century British monumental sculpture, the collection is less useful for specific information about monuments or sculptors. In addition, many of Esdaile's attributions in her notes appear to have been based primarily on her own instincts and do not have citations. Many of Esdaile's notes are handwritten on small scraps of paper or are fragments, sometimes making the information difficult to parse. The collection is chiefly Esdaile's files, but the dates on some items (such as post-1950 booklets) indicate the collection was added to and used after her death, presumably by her son Edmund Esdaile, who also made notes on items in the collection and appears to have done the preliminary organization of the papers after Esdaile's death.
mssEsdaile
Image not available
Incoming correspondence
Manuscripts
56 letters on topics including responses to Esdaile's November 5th letter to The Times on the preservation of church monuments through photographs; an invitation for Esdaile to become a representative of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings at the Conference (which led to the Council of National Buildings Record); an angry letter from Geoffrey Houghton-Brown about inadequate efforts to safeguard Westminster Abbey; correspondence about Joseph Wilton RA; the rejection of a novel manuscript by publisher John Murray; Arundell Esdaile's retirement from the British Museum; and a letter about the Leverhulme Fellowship (for the Dictionary of British Sculptors). The impact of the bombings destruction and uncertainty around the country is vividly brought out in these letters.
mssEsdaile
Image not available
Clippings related to war damage of monuments and town planning
Manuscripts
6 clippings including letter to The Times of February 26, 1941, establishing Council of National Buildings Record and subsequent articles recording losses through bombing and war damage and later legislation on the Town and Country Planning Bill.
mssEsdaile
Image not available
Incoming correspondence
Manuscripts
31 letters on topics including Esdaile's marriage on June 22nd and letters of congratulations and further publication of her writing.
mssEsdaile
Image not available
Writings
Manuscripts
Includes the Sussex Note and Queries (May 1945), edited by Arundell Esdaile; the Library Association Record (June 1947) containing an article "University and Research Library Notes" by Arundell Esdaile; and various miscellaneous handwritten research notes (?), including fragments.
mssEsdaile