Searching for gems: the Kimberley Papers at Oxford University

Abstract

Until recent ly , the extensive collection of paper s of John Wodehouse, the f irst Earl of Kimberley, was in pr iva te hands and vi r tual ly undis turbed. On 12 December 1991, a lmost 90 years af ter his death, the paper s were pu rchased at So therby ' s by the Bodleian Library, Oxford Universi ty, for about £40 000.1 Additional funding came f rom the Radcliffe Trust , the Friends of the Bodleian and the Friends of the National Libraries. The collection compr ises prac t ica l ly all Kimber ley ' s surviving polit ical paper s wi th the exception of a small collection of diplomatic cor respondence in the Brit ish Library (Add Mss 46692-4) dated 1856-1858, while he was minis ter p len ipotent ia ry to Russia. There are also eight volumes of Kimber ley ' s la ter cor respondence in the Nat ional Library of Scotland (Mss 10242-9). Because of its considerable size, the sort ing and cataloguing of the Oxford collection was a s low process and the Kimber ley Papers only became avai lable to r e sea rche r s in 1995, the same year in which Elizabeth Turne r ' s comprehens ive inventory to the collection appeared. 2 The collection is very large, compris ing no less than 589 volumes a r ranged into 13 main sections. Section 7, Kimber ley ' s paper s while he was Secre tary of State for the Colonies, is the mos t impor tan t for South African researchers , bu t the others are also l is ted here for the sake of clari ty. Sections 2 -10 are volumes of Kimber ley ' s cor respondence (both outgoing and incoming). The paper s in these sections are a r ranged according to the offices Lord Kimberley held. Within each section, the le t ters are a r ranged a lphabet ical ly according to correspondent .