Firth, Sir Charles Harding

The collection contains notes by Sir Charles Firth, c 1886-1910. They concern chiefly the foreign relations of Great Britain with various European powers including Holland, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Spain from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Charles Harding Firth was born in Sheffield on 16 March 1857. He received his education from Clifton College, New College, Oxford and Balliol College, Oxford where he graduated with a degree in Modern History in 1878. After lecturing for a period at his uncle's foundation, Firth College, he moved to Oxford in 1883. He was a history lecturer at Pembroke College, from 1883 to 1893, Ford's lecturer 1900-1901, in 1902 he became a research fellow at All Souls and he was Regius Professor of Modern History from 1904 to 1925. He was one of a group of historians who established the English Historical Review in 1886. He served as president of the Royal Historical Society from 1913-1917 and twice as president of the Historical Association, 1906-1910, and 1918-1920.

Firth received honorary degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen, Durham, Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester and Oxford. He was given a knighthood in 1922. Firth's areas of historical interest included the military, travel, colonisation and Oliver Cromwell. Firth's works include, the Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle , 1886, Oliver Cromwell 1900 and The House of Lords During the Civil War , 1910.

Access to the items in the collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the controlled environment and restrictions of the Library's Palaeography Room Uncatalogued material may not be seen. Please contact the University Archivist for details.

Catalogue of Manuscripts by the Institute of Historical Research

The Bodleian Library, Oxford University, holds historical papers (Ref: MSS Firth); Liverpool University has letters and lecture notebooks, [1890]; Reading University Library contains notes relating to the Battle of Edgehill, [1900] (Ref: MS 118); Worcester College Library, Oxford University, holds notes on the Clarke Papers (Ref: CCXIV); Cambridge University Library contains letters to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 1896-1900 (Ref: Add MSS 6443, 8119, 8123); Sheffield University Library holds letters to William Albert Samuel Hewins; the British Library, London, has correspondence with Macmillans, 1909-1922 (Ref: Add MS 55080); the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, contains letters to David Nichol Smith, 1909-1936 (Ref: MS 19601).

Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.