Mss and other papers relating to John Middleton Murry and Community Farm

The collection is composed of material emanating from the collections built by Victor Skipp, being:

• 1 x original ms of 'Community Farm', with Contents, Introduction, Chapters I-XVI, and Postscript, with annotations, and revised Chapters, but no Chapter V, VI or X
• 1 x original ms of part of 'Community Farm', being Chapters V and New Chapter, both with penicl annotation speaking of Chapter VI New Blood and Chapter VII A Chapter of Cranks
• 1 x legal document, or Agreement, made 9 May 1951 between John Middleton Murry, called the author, and Peter Nevill, the publishers, whereby the publishers contract to publish a new work entitled 'Community Farm'
• 1 x file of newspaper cuttings, many of them Durrant's Press Cuttings of reviews of 'Community Farm', 1952
• 1 x legal document, or Valuation, Michaelmas 1942, of the farm covenants upon the Lodge farm in the Parish of Thelnetham, Suffolk, from Mr Percival Barker, the outgoing owner, to Mr John Middleton Murry, the purchaser
• 1 x file of Profit and Loss Statements and Balance Sheets, 1942-1948
• 1 x file of Profit and Loss Statements and Balance Sheets, 1948-1952
• 2 x pieces of printed matter, being Waterfields Catalogue 50, 1985, 'Twentieth Century English Literature' containing description of Lot 1397, the original ms of 'Community Farm'; and, Catalogue of C. R. Johnson Rare Book Collections, 'John Middleton Murry – a collection', [1987]

Later on in his life, John Middleton Murry (1889-1957), the writer, reviewer and critic, became interested in self supporting agricultural communities and set up Lodge Farm at Thelnetham - just inside Suffolk, and close to Norfolk. The run down Lodge Farm was bought as Murry's last attempt at forming a community, having earlier in his life purchased a farm in Langham, Essex (in 1934). Murry and Max Plowman (1883-1941), writer and pacifist, established a pacifist community centre on the land which they called the Adelphi Centre. John Middleton Murry is buried in the churchyard at Thelnetham.

Murry had written Community Farm in 1952.

At Hopton, near Diss, Suffolk, and near to Thelnetham and Murry's Lodge Farm, lived the historian, writer and collector Victor Skipp (1925-2010). Skipp, a Cambridge graduate, specialised in writing about the industrial revolution of the West Midlands.

Open to bona fide researchers, but please contact repository for details in advance of visit.

Accession no: E2014.74.

Catalogued by Graeme D. Eddie 23 April 2015

Also within Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections, there are the 'Papers of John Middleton Murry', Coll-62.