Glenesk-Bathurst papers

The correspondence of Oliver Borthwick and Lady Bathurst, including Winston Churchill's despatches from the Sudan in 1898 and eye-witness accounts of the Russian revolution of 1917 from Georgina Buchanan, wife of the British ambassador at St Petersburg, casts light on a wide range of contemporary political and social matters. A long series of letters from H. A. Gwynne (1865-1950), editor of the Morning Post from 1911-1937, to Lady Bathurst comments freely on current politics and the fortunes of the newspaper. The collection also contains a certain amount of family material. A section is devoted to the affairs of the Oliver Borthwick Memorial Home in south-east London, and another refers to the work of the British Legion of Help which organised relief for the devastated areas of northern France immediately after the First World War.

The Glenesk-Bathurst papers revolve around the Morning Post, an influential Conservative newspaper which eventually merged with the Daily Telegraph, and relate mainly to the Edwardian period though the coverage extends back into the later years of Queen Victoria and forwards to the early 1920s. The Morning Post had been acquired in 1877 by Algernon Borthwick (Conservative MP for South Kensington, 1885-1895; knighted in 1880 and raised to the peerage as the first Baron Glenesk in 1895). In his later years much of the management of the paper devolved upon his son, Oliver (1873-1905). Upon the death of Lord Glenesk in 1908 control of the paper passed to his daughter, Lilias, who married Seymour Henry, 7th Earl Bathurst, in 1893. In 1924 Lord and Lady Bathurst sold the paper to a consortium headed by the Duke of Northumberland.

At Lord Bathurst's request, letters written by members of the family who are still living shall remain closed for the time being and access to them will only be permissible with the specific prior consent of their respective writers

Deposited by the Earl Bathurst, 1990

In English

Contents listed in Handlists 96 and 98 and in the Letters database http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/letters/letlink.htm#gleneskbathurst

Access to the majority of the documents in the collection is not restricted but if extensive verbatim citation of any of them in a commercial publication is proposed, the matter should be referred to Lord Bathurst in advance. Moreover since copyright has not been vested in the Brotherton Library, researchers should make the appropriate enquiries before any such publication.

The main bulk of family and estate papers of the Bathursts of Cirencester is preserved in Gloucestershire County Record Office at Gloucester (ref. D 2525, D 2381 and D 4483)