Red House Surtees Manuscripts

A text of Robert Surtees's History of Durham, with some variations from that finally published, along with some other notes of Surtees, and some lectures and letters of Sir Henry Conyers Surtees. The Robert Surtees text includes portions which were not in a publishable state at his death, and so did not appear in the published 1840 volume. The papers also contain occasional notes by and even papers of Sir Cuthbert Sharp, Christopher Hunter, Thomas Woodness, James Raine, and printed sheets lifted from William Hutchinson's History.

Robert Surtees (1779-1834) was the only surviving child of Robert Surtees of Mainsforth and his wife Dorothy, daughter of William Steele of Kent, and was born in Durham in 1779. He was educated at Kepier Grammar School, Houghton-le-Spring, and then by Dr Bristow at Neasdon. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1796, graduating BA in 1800. A legal career beckoned as he became a student of the Middle Temple but he returned to Mainsforth in 1802 on the death of his father.

A collector of coins and folklore as a child, he now dedicated himself to researching and writing a history of Durham, travelling around the county with a long-suffering groom. Ill-health made publication progress slow. First advertised in 1812, volumes of History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durhamappeared in 1816, 1820 and 1823, with his friend James Raine being left to produce the concluding volume in 1840. The work contains much genealogical information, and accurate at that, stemming from Surtees's ready access to many family collections. The text was lavishly illustrated, and also interpolated with Surtees's own poems, which gained him the acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott. Surtees remained much at Mainsforth, where he attracted quite a circle of like-minded enquirers into antiquities who were allowed ready access to his own materials. His eminence and esteem were recognised by the foundation of the Surtees Society shortly after his death in 1834, to publish manuscripts prior to the Restoration to illustrate the history of the area between the Humber and the Forth.

Brigadier General Sir Herbert Conyers Surtees (1858-1933) was a descendant of the Redworth branch of the Surtees family. He inherited the remainder of Robert Surtees's library at Mainsforth on the death of his father, Charles Freville Surtees, in 1906. He was a not inconsiderable antiquarian himself. As well as his interest in his antecedent Robert Surtees, and indeed in all branches of the family, which led to his collaboration with H.R. Leighton in Records of the family of Surtees : its descents and alliances (Newcastle upon Tyne 1925), he also published a number of parish histories for Co Durham, and on the heraldry of Durham Cathedral.

Open for consultation.

Loaned in 1986 and formally deposited on loan from Red House School, Norton, Co Durham, in 1999.

Transferred into custody of Durham University Library at 5 The College, July 2016 (accession Misc.2013/14:66)

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Online catalogue

Much of Robert Surtees's material was sold off after his death in 1834 to pay his debts, and what descended to H.C. Surtees was also subject to dispersal after his death in 1933. So there are some of Robert Surtees's manuscripts in Durham University Library ASC in the Surtees Raine Collection, and others are now in Lambton Park (Box 22), Borthwick Institute York (UL.MSS 4), Durham County Record Office (D/X 1022), and the Bodleian Library Oxford (MS Top Oxon c 73). Correspondence of his is in Northumberland Record Office (M12: B25, M17: 5-6), the National Library of Scotland (MS 9309 and, correspondence with Walter Scott, MSS 852-870, 3877-3916, 9308) and Yorkshire Archaeological Society (MS 109).

Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Reprographics Officer at Durham Cathedral Library (library@durhamcathedral.co.uk). The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

The collection probably belonged to Herbert Conyers Surtees and then his kinsman Bertram Surtees Raine

The Surtees manuscripts comprise the main bulk of the Surtees material in the Cathedral Library. Durham Cathedral Additional MSS 203 and 204 also comprise a number of H.C. Surtees's texts of proposed works on parishes and Durham Cathedral.