Dr Gary Love, NTNU Trondheim, Norway
I recently completed the Churchill Archives Centre By-Fellowship and I write this short report for the Archives Committee and Churchill College to detail just how useful the experience was both for my research and the development of my general academic career.
I used the majority of my time at the Archives Centre to study the papers of Quintin Hogg, later known as Lord Hailsham, George Lloyd, Leo and Julian Amery, George Pitt-Rivers, and Philip Cunliffe-Lister (Swinton). This is a vast amount of material and I will continue to work on these collections in Norway thanks to my use of a digital camera while I was in the archive. I am mainly interested in the intellectual output of these figures, including publications, speeches, and broadcasts, but I read all the correspondence files in these collections for the years 1922–51. The Hailsham papers were by far the most valuable resource for my project because he was in this period one of the most intellectual MPs and he corresponded with some of the Conservative Party’s young rising stars who were themselves mostly serious thinkers. This material will be central to my book, which will be a broad history of the intellectual life of the party.
I used some of my time in other archives and libraries in Cambridge. I made excellent use of the R.A. Butler papers at Trinity College, which equalled Hailsham in terms of the amount of documentation that could be used for my book. I read the William Inge (Dean of St Paul’s) diaries at Magdalene College. Finally, I read and photographed entire or partial runs of a number of important periodicals both for this project and other potential articles/ side projects (New English Review, 1945–51; Fascist Quarterly and British Union Quarterly 1935–40; National Review 1940–51; Nineteenth Century and After 1940–51; Fortnightly Review 1940–51; Quarterly Review 1940–51; Week-end Review 1931–33). I have already read these publications for the period 1922–39. I also read a number of Conservative Party pamphlets in the University Library that are difficult to find elsewhere.
I also spent a number of days visiting the family of a historian of the interwar years, F.J.C. Hearnshaw, to read his papers in Liverpool, which have not been used by any scholar before. I will write an article on his work as a historian, but more importantly about his political links to the Conservative party and his journalism. Finally, I visited the LSE archives to read the papers of Gerald Barry, the editor of the Week-end Review and News Chronicle in the 1930s, and those of the Conservative MP Vyvyan Adams.
This material will now enable me to write my book, which should keep me busy for the next 2–3 years. But as mentioned I will also be able to write at least two articles in this period as well thanks to the By-Fellowship. I will return to Cambridge in around one year’s time to give a paper on the progress of my research and the writing of my book, which I am really looking forward to. I hope to use the experience of the By-Fellowship to maintain a long-term relationship with the Churchill Archives Centre and Churchill College.
The By-Fellowship was a wonderful experience. I particularly enjoyed meeting the Fellows and absorbing as much of the college experience as possible while I was there. Allen Packwood and the archives staff made sure that I had everything that I needed during my stay and were incredibly helpful. I also got the chance to speak to experienced and respected historians like Mark Goldie, David Reynolds, and David Edgerton to name just a few, and I used my dining privileges to invite other members of the History Faculty to dine at the college, which was a great success. But I also greatly enjoyed meeting a number of other By-Fellows who were all working on very interesting projects. I hope to keep in touch with all of them as my career develops. Barry Phipps was also another interesting contact and deserves a special mention because he kindly showed me the College’s art collection and was very informative. Needless to say, I hope to return to the College in the future and I will always be looking for new ways to maintain my connections with Cambridge while I am based in Norway.
— Dr Gary Love, NTNU Trondheim, Norway
