DVD listening and viewing copy titled 'In Conversation with Michael Ramsbotham, June 2016, Whitehouse Cottage, West Sussex'.
Also includes printed materials relating to Henry Reed, including a publication of 'A Map of Verona' with a dedication to Michael Ramsbotham, 1947; and a photocopied proof of Jon Stallworthy's 'Collected Poems of Henry Reed', 1991.
Michael Ramsbotham (1919-2016) was born in London on 12 November 1919, the second child of Wilfrid Hubert Ramsbotham and Phyllis Dorothy Roper-Curzon Scott. An elder sister, Claire Patricia (1916-2018), was born on 7 January 1916. Claire married Hugh William Shillito on 12 April 1939 and the couple had four children: Susan Margaret (b 1941), Martin Lancelot (1943-2004), Richard Arthur (b 1948), and Christina Mary (b 1950).
Michael and Claire's father, Wilfrid, was a colonel who served with the Artists Rifles in the First World War whilst his paternal uncle, Herwald, was a Conservation politician and later ennobled as Viscount Soulbury.
Michael studied at Charterhouse and it has been suggested that his growing awareness of his sexuality eventually led to threats of a public flogging and he was withdrawn by his parents. In 1938 he won a place to read history at King's College, Cambridge. His friends there included C. P. Snow. He was awarded an accelerated degree after two years and joined the RNVR with very little previous naval experience. In 1940 he was trained as an asdic officer at swimming baths in Hove, detecting submarines with sonar. After eight weeks' training he was sent to Weymouth and then to Swansea from where he patrolled the Bristol Channel. Following the Swansea Blitz he was relocated to Milford Haven.
During the summer of 1940, Michael was recruited to intelligence work and based at Bletchley Park [Vernon Kell, Founder and Director of MI5, was a family relation; Hugh Trevor Roper, later Lord Dacre, was his cousin; and the influential Sir John Plumb had been his tutor at Cambridge]. Located in Hut 4, he was responsible to sending out translations of Italian decodes. Whilst at Bletchley he made numerous academic companions, men who were older than himself including Archibald Campbell, Sir Angus Wilson and Sir Francis Harry Hinsley. He also became lifelong friends, and romantically involved, with the poet Henry Reed. The couple were in a homosexual relationship throughout much of the 1940s. Towards the end of the war, Michael was responsible for working in the Japanese section which he found difficult. After suffering a nervous breakdown at the end of the Second World War, Michael left Bletchley and escaped to Cornwall. He was not court-martialled and was later sent to Portsmouth to be in charge of naval movements there. At this time Henry Reed was staying at a hotel in Dorchester, working on his book about Thomas Hardy. Michael would stay with Henry during this time and began to start writing himself. Some of his books were published including 'The Remains of the Father'.
After demobilisation he became Secretary to architect Lord Mottistone and was involved in rebuilding work in London. He later became a Probation Officer until that work caused another breakdown. Michael reviewed novels for 'The New Statesman' and 'The Listener'. He published two novels 'The Parish of Long Trister' and 'The Remains of a Father'.
Michael and Henry Reed parted during 1950 and, whilst living in London, Michael met Barry Grey who was then on RAF National Service. The couple moved to a seventeenth-century cottage, Whitehouse Cottage, West Sussex where they spent many happy years and created a garden and planted a wood where Michael is now buried.
Michael's died on 13 July 2016, aged 96.
Sources: Reminiscences of Michael Ramsbotham; obituary published in 'The Times', 15 September 2016; 'The Peerage' website accessed 26 September 2019 via http://www.thepeerage.com/p58032.htm; Charterhouse School obituaries accessed 26 September 2019 via https://www.charterhouse.org.uk/foundation/obituaries
Open, access to all registered researchers.
DVD presented September 2016; printed materials presented November 2019.
Please see full catalogue for more information.
Papers arranged and described by Mark Eccleston, September 2016, in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; and in-house cataloguing guidelines.
Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director of Special Collections (email: special-collections@contacts.bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible in identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.
DVD was gifted by Barney Reynolds, nephew of Michael Ramsbotham, September 2016; following Michael's death in 2016 the printed materials came into the possession of Barry Gray, Michael's civil partner. Following Barry Gray's death in October 2018 the material was deposited at the Cadbury Research Library via Philip Robinson, Barry Gray's Executor.
