I’ve just catalogued two bound volumes which had originally belonged to Sir Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, new arrivals at Churchill Archives Centre. Lady Randolph was a fantastically glamorous and extravagant figure – take a look at her dressed as the Empress Theodora to get a flavour of this – and so I looked forward to getting my hands on these two new albums. This was a woman, after all, who had persuaded people to bankroll several financial disasters which had enabled her to showcase her talents – think of her leather bound magazine the Anglo-Saxon Review – beautiful but eye-poppingly expensive to produce and buy which lasted for 10 issues.
Lady Randolph Churchill as the Empress Theodora, 1897. Reference: Churchill Papers, CHAR 28/114/13.
One of the albums (our reference PCHL 1/8) was chiefly used as a visitors’ book at Salisbury Hall, St Albans, where Lady Randolph lived with her second husband George Cornwallis West (born in 1874, the same year as her eldest son). It includes photos of guests in the grounds and signatures recording those who stayed there.
Lady Randolph's visitors book. Reference: Peregrine Churchill Papers, PCHL 1/8.
The album itself is gorgeous, leather bound with gold tooling. This picture shows Lady Randolph’s book plate in design and final form – how splendid to have a book plate featuring your name set to music!
Lady Randolph's visitors book. Reference: Peregrine Churchill Papers, PCHL 1/8.
I also discovered that Lady Randolph had used one page of the book to note down inspirational quotations. How then to define the book in the neutral and accurate (dare I say dry?) terms you expect in an archive catalogue? I was keen to understand for what purpose Lady Randolph had had such a beautiful and expensive book made. Our Conservation department know a lot about book binding so I asked Bridget Warrington, our Conservation Assistant, to come and take a look. When we looked at the spine of the book, Bridget explained that the ‘head’ of the volume (see www.uflib.ufl.edu/preserve/binding/glossary.htm) is slightly longer than the ‘tail’ so we were able to infer which part of this book was originally the front (in this case the page which was used to note down quotations).
You can find the catalogue to these items at the Janus webserver and much more about Lady Randolph in the Churchill Papers.
Natalie Adams