Blatchford, Robert, Archive

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Robert Blatchford, socialist campaigner and journalist collected first by his immediate family and then passed into the care of Baron Lord David Clark of Windemere. It contains handwritten and bound and published copies of his poems, articles and other writings, including a matching bound set of his publications from Lord Clark's library. The collection also includes a large amount of correspondence written by Blatchford to his daughters, his personal accounts, records of his war service, newspaper cuttings and scrapbooks of his career.

Box 1: Personal papers, accounts, correspondence and articles written by Blatchford.

Box 2: Books by Blatchford from Lord Clark's library, mostly in English.

Box 3: Bound matching set of Blatchford's books.

Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford (17 Mar 1851 – 17 Dec 1943) was a socialist campaigner, journalist and author in the United Kingdom. He was a prominent atheist and opponent of eugenics. He was also an English patriot. In the early 1920s, after the death of his wife, he turned towards spiritualism. Born in Maidstone, he lived in Halifax for many years, before settling in Norwich. He launched The Clarion newspaper in 1891. He married Sarah Crossley in 1880 and had two daughters, Winifred and Dorothea and a son, Corrie. He died in Horsham, Sussex in 1943.

Material has been arranged into Family Documents and Blatchford's publications at subfonds level. Series in the Family documents include those for the household and recording family life in photographs, clippings and correspondence. Correspondence has been arranged chronologically (although the records were in some disorder when deposited there was an indication this is how they had been organised) and indexed via authority files. Blatchford's publications have been arranged by publication type.

Original available for consultation by appointment

Listed by Harriet Notman, Archives Assistant, December 2013-September 2014. Correspondence listed by Georgia Parker, Volunteer, March 2015. Arranged and catalogue completed by Assistant Archivist Lindsay Ince.

None carried out.

These papers were deposited with the University of Huddersfield as a permenant loan by Lord David Clark. These papers had been passed to Lord David Clark as a gift from the niece of Blatchford. They were most likely acquired from Winnie, Blatchford's daughter. Both Winnie and Dolly Blatchford did not marry and had no heirs, and his heir Corrie, died young.