Gavin Burns Henderson: Transcripts and research material

Transcripts and related research material concerning European diplomacy in the 1850s.

Gavin Henderson was born in London, and educated at Nottingham High School and Latymer Upper School. He came up to Cambridge in 1928 as an exhibitioner at Selwyn, and took Firsts in both parts of the Historical Tripos. He then studied for his doctorate under Harold Temperley ('The European Concert June 1854-July 1855', completed in 1934), as well as supervising undergraduates and lecturing on current affairs for the Extra Mural Board and the WEA. In 1933 he was appointed to a lectureship in the History Department of the University of Glasgow. He produced a stream of articles, mostly concerning foreign policy and diplomacy in the 1850s, based on extensive research in British, German and Austrian archives. During the Second World War he lectured for the Ministry of Information and the Central Committee for Adult Education in His Majesty's Forces, culminating in a lecture tour to troops in the Middle East and North Africa during the autumn of 1944. He returned to Glasgow University in January 1945 but agreed to undertake a further short tour in the Mediterranean on behalf of the RAF, during which he was killed in an air crash near Athens in June 1945, aged 36.

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Presented to the University Library circa 1947 by Gavin Henderson's widow, Mrs Lily Henderson.

This finding aid has been converted from a catalogue created by S G Roberts in July 2014.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

The University Library holds further transctips and notes of Henderson at MS Add.7740 and four letters to Gavin Henderson from members of the Earle family (1938), concerning his research into the career of Disraeli's private secretary Ralph Earle (MS Add.4251/400-403).