Week 5: Expert Knowledge

This is the sixth in a series of posts about my Humfrey Wanley Fellowship project, which investigates the scholarship of the women who staffed the Bodleian's unofficial research department in the early twentieth century. The full series of posts can be read here. The first post, which outlines the scope and background of the project, is here.

...a little lunch-party with, she gathered, some kind of historical basis, mention of somebody's article for the Proceedings of Something or Other, which Wimsey was going to 'step into All Souls and look at--it won't take you ten minutes,' and references to the printing and distribution of Reformation polemical pamphlets--to Wimsey's expert knowledge--to the other man's expert knowledge--and to the inexpert pretence at knowledge of some historian from another university. ~ Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

One of the unexpected delights of reading the letters to the Parker family found in the Bodleian's Library Records collection is glimpses of their correspondents' daily lives and personalities: the countess who got to the post office and realised she'd forgotten her purse; a vicar driven to distraction by a kitchen boiler catastrophe; an absent-minded academic who stuck a cheque in his pocket and forgot to send it for a few weeks, an antiquarian whose scholarship came to a screeching halt when his son fell ill and needed to be home-schooled for a few months. Overwhelmingly, the letters are to members of the Parker family, not from them, which means that their own personalities and domestic lives largely take shape as negative space.

Of course, the point of my project is to look at their expertise and involvement in scholarship, not their personal lives; but it is interesting when the two intersect, as they do in the following letter to Angelina Frances New (née Parker) (1865-1939).

J. Maitland Thomson to Angelina F New, 11 November 1905; Library Records d. 405. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries

 

3 Governor Gardens, Edinburgh 

11 November 1905

Dear Madam,

I hasten to offer you my congratulations and to assure you that if I had been au courant of Oxford news, I would not have troubled you with business at such a time.

I gather that you intend to finish what you have undertake me, quand même. When you are writing any way, I should be obliged if you could mention whether you intend to continue Record-searching. I want nothing more at present, but I never can tell when something may be required, and I may at any time be asked to recommend someone for work of this kind.

Yours faithfully,

J. Maitland Thomson

The 'Oxford news' in question was that Angelina Parker had gotten married to Randal Herbert New, a printer nineteen years her junior, who was born in Brazil to English parents. Evidently, the new Mrs New did not intend to let her marriage interrupt a commission in progress, and her correspondent, John Maitland Thomson, Curator of the Historical Department at the Scottish Records Office, found her expertise valuable enough to inquire about her long-term plans. 

The library records letters show that experts who could reliably collate, date, transcribe, and translate medieval documents were invaluable to scholars who could not come to the Bodleian to do work themselves--a number of the Parker family's correspondents indicate that their services came highly recommended by others who had used their work. Thomson's question about her long-term plans provides a wonderful testament to this network of recommendation, and also a useful corrective to the assumption that Edwardian women stopped working after marriage.

 

Their correspondence, which began in July 1905, provides further testament to networks of recommendation. In his first letter to Angelina Parker Thomson mentions that she was recommended by a Miss E.M. Thompson, who did record-searching on his behalf in London. The letter is worth quoting in full to give an accurate sense of Thomson's work with Thompson, and of the ambitious scope of his initial inquiry.

 

Letter from J. Maitland Thomson to Angelina Parker, 15 July 1905. Library Records d. 405. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries.

15 July 1905

 

Dear Madam,

 

Some time ago I asked Miss E.M. Thompson, who kindly does for me much Record-searching as I require in London, to give me the name of some one who would undertake similar work in Oxford. Miss Thompson in reply sent me your name and address: so I now write to ask you if you are willing to undertake searching for me.

 

Of course, I would be glad to hear of any Ms. worth going over (from my point of view) in any of the Libraries but assume that the Bodleian is the likeliest to yield good results.

 

I am endeavouring to form a Calendar, as complete as I can achieve, of all Charters and writs of the early Kings of Scotland, down to 1424, to form part of a forthcoming Scottish Record publication. You are doubtless aware that on King David I, Malcolm IV, and William the Lion were English nobles as well as Kings in their own country, and in that capacity made many grants, of which those to Religious Houses are often preserved--Miss Thompson has found me a good many such, besides what is printed in the Monasticon and elsewhere. Probably the Bodleian contains reprints of which these is no copy in the British Museum, and there may be other Mss in other Oxford libraries.

 

The Chartulary of St Frideswide's is in print, so there is no need to trouble with it, I have procured photographs of the only two ancient Scottish Charters which appear in the Bodleian Calendar, and the Librarian of Madgalen College has kindly communicated to me full notes as to the Scottish Charters there preserved, beyond that anything from Oxford would be new to me.

 

The first thing to do is to obtain if possible a list of the Chartularies found at Oxford, and then decide what is worth going on in detail. The likeliest Chartularies are those of the Midland Counties, from ?shire to ?shire and as far north as Northamptonshire etc,  ?shire, also, then of the Downs Counties.

 

What I want copies of are--all you can find of the Kings of Scotland and (which I am about now) Scottish earls of Huntingdon and Northampton; also charters relating to important Scottish families--of which ? a note should suffice, but I am specifically interested in the Olifards, and the Hays-- as to the four I want the fullest details I can get.

 

A secondary source that might be worth exploring after the ancient Mss, is the collections by old antiquarians in which the Bodleian is rich.

 

I hope I have made my wants sufficiently intelligible and that you are willing to try to supply them, I presume your terms will be similar to Miss Thompson's but it might be convenient to put them on paper for me.

 

Apologies for troubling you, I remain, dear Madam, Yrs faithfully,

 

J. Maitland Thomson

 

Address--Historical Department, General Register House, Edinburgh. Just to say that I prefer to have the contractions unextended.
 

Delightfully, the connection between Oxford and London transcribers is fleshed out by further letters--Library Records d. 409 contain five letters from Miss Thompson, largely about manuscript transcription, dating from 1910. Although only one of the letters is to Mrs New--the rest are to her sister, Evaline--they provide some evidence that not only did Angelina New intend to keep working, she was actually able to do so to some extent.

 

Returning to the period immediately following her marriage--less than a week after Thomson asked Mrs New if she intended to continue her work, their correspondence on scholarly matters picked up pace.

16 November 1905

 

Dear Madam,

 

I enclose cheque for £5 to account as requested; and am very glad to have the first installment of the Brachley Charters. I will look them over when I can get time, and will ask you anything that puzzles me. I have by me copies of the short extracts by Mr Macray.

 

Would the Bodleian be willing to photograph certain of the documents? I have got them to photograph two charters of their own some time ago. But I know they draw the line and will not compete with the trade in miscellaneous work, what I want are 1) the agreement between Brackley and Inchaffray about certain teloids (tithes I mean--I apologise). It is Brackley D. 126. 2) Such of the seals as seem worth doing--I believe the Bodleian method of reproducing seals is particularly successful. If they are willing, I will write particulars later on. Meanwhile you might give me the size of the document I have indicated.

 

Yrs faithfully, 

 

J. Maitland Thomson

What exactly was Thomson working on? His first letter (of July 1905) explained that he working on a Scottish Records publication of Scottish royal charters and wanted help finding sources in the Bodleian. Letters over subsequent months make it clear that the search was also extended to the collections of various Oxford colleges. While this work never seems to have been fully published, later editors of Scottish royal charters noted the importance of Thomson's groundwork. As a testament to the range of his scholarship, Thomson was editor The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland from 1884; but Angelina Parker New does not seem to have contributed Oxford material to this. 

 

However, her work did contribute to Thomson's edition of Scottish monastic charters, Charters, bulls and other documents relating to the abbey of Inchaffray, chiefly from the originals in the charter chest of the Earl of Kinnoull, published in 1908. The final letter from Thomson in the Library Records collection, from 1906, relates to work for this edition.

J. Maitland Thomson to Mrs New, 27 November 1906. Library Records d. 405. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries.

 

27 November 1906

 

I have received the Bursar's [of Magdalen College, where Mrs New transcribed a charter in 1905] permission and have enclosed it to the Bodleian Librarian asking his leave also. 

 

I have also written to the University Press, explaining that you will point out the document and seals. Also I have said that the charter of Roger de Quincy (C. 127) is to be life size but the Agreement (D. 126) to be in your discretion either the size to go into the octavo page (9 x 5-1/2) or a 10 x 8 plate and to fold. The seals all full size and absolutely exact.

 

Yrs faithfully, 

 

J. Maitland Thomson 

 

Mrs New's contribution is acknowledged in a footnote in the edition:

From a copy, made about 1350, at Magdalen College, Oxford; marked Brackley D 116. Transcribed by Mrs. New of Oxford. Some parts being injured, the MS. has been carefully examined, and the words or letters which appear to be missing supplied within brackets. A piece of parchment sewed on contains copies in the same handwriting of the two charters here appended. (p. 155).

What's particularly interesting about this footnote is that it makes clear the degree of skill manuscript transcription required--medieval handwriting is often extremely difficult to read. It can be heavily abbreviated, or, as was the case here--damaged, making a knowledgeable interpreter crucial in understanding what a text actually says.

 

The letters between Angelina Parker New and J. Maitland  Thomson provide an excellent example of the ways in which the transcribers, translators, and copyists of the Bodleian's unofficial research department might be involved at different stages of a scholarly project, from the initial search for sources to final publication. They illustrate the collaborative means by which early twentieth century editions were created, in which the expert knowledge of transcribers such as E.M. Thompson and Angelina Parker New played a key role.

 

Further Reading

 

H. A. Cronne, “Early Scottish Charters.” The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 40, no. 130 (1960): 146–51.

 

William Alexander Lindsay, John Dowden, and J. Maitland Thomson. Charters, Bulls and Other Documents Relating to the Abbey of Inchaffray, Chiefly from the Originals in the Charter Chest of the Earl of Kinnoull (Edinburgh, 1908).

 

George Neilson, “Sir Archibald Lawrie’s Charter Collections.” The Scottish Historical Review, vol. 19, no. 76 (1922): 241–53.

Week 4: the Hub of the Universe

This is the fifth in a series of posts about my Humfrey Wanley Fellowship project, in which I am exploring the Bodleian libraries' unofficial research department in the early twentieth century through the letters of the Parker family, found in the Library Records collection. The first post, which explains the scope and background of the project, is here; there are also posts for week 1; week 2; and week 3.

Harriet really was gathering material, in a leisurely way, for a study of Lefanu, though the Bodleian was not, perhaps, the ideal source for it. But there must be some reason given for her presence, and Oxford is willing enough to believe that the Bodleian is the hub of the scholar's universe. She was able to find enough references among the Periodical Publications to justify an optimistic answer to kindly inquiries about her progress. ~ Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

'Please excuse the most disorderly letter ever written' the American essayist and poet Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) began one of her many letters to Bodleian paleographer and copyist Evaline Parker (1881-1966). An illustration shows what Guiney means by a disorderly letter:

Letter from Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, 27 June 1910. Library Records d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries.

Not only is letter overwhelmed by glued-on postscripts of various lengths and orientations, part of the postscript is cross-written over the beginning of the letter, giving an irresistible impression of energetic enthusiasm. Guiney's forty-odd letters in the Library Records collection are delightful: the products of a gifted and intelligent writer who was head-over-heels in love with the Bodleian.

Louise Imogen Guiney, Loyola University Chicago Special Collections.

Louise Guiney was born in Boston, educated in Providence, and began her career as a professional poet, a calling which brought her literary success but no steady income. She first came to England with her mother in 1889, funding their travels by means of travel letters for the Boston Post newspaper, and from 1901 onward was mostly based overseas, getting to Oxford whenever her health and finances permitted.

Of her experiences working in the Bodleian, she wrote in one of her many magazine publications:

One never hears the sound of wheels and hoofs the while, but only the agreeable swish of academic gowns and the year-long voices of birds; and a current of keen fresh air (by the exercise of unique virtue in a library) sweeps from one transept to the other as a daily matter of course, subduing and keeping sweet the musty breath of antiquity. The accommodations for readers are recklessly generous: one has the widest of desks, a thoroughly comfortable chair, good ink, pens, and paper, and bookstands if they be needed. (There is no artificial light on foggy days and there is little heat in winter this is to remind the sybarites of Oxford of the Dominus illuminatio mea, and of that warmth which is not carnal accendat in nobis ignem sui amoris.) The labour-saving devices of our latter day are discountenanced: light-footed boys bring priceless MSS. in their arms and books not marked as reserved for the morrow's study are gathered up again in the same obvious manner and carried in baskets' down the winding staircases and off into the far corners sacred to bequests of Ashmole or Selden, Rawlinson or Douce. At the more recent end, the Carolian end, of the great room stands in its quaint framework a good-humoured but authoritative big bell of the year 1600, a personal friend of the second founder, which rings in and rings out the enchanted seven hours of a working Bodleian day. The library staff has a truly inexhaustive courtesy such as men sadly agree to call the lost courtesy of yesterday. Even the catalogue can hardly be called modern, but you love it while you suffer from it. ~ 'The Three Hundredth Birthday of the Bodleian Library', the Sphere, Saturday 11 October 1902, p. 34.

"Oxford - Radcliffe Camera, Bodleian Library, & Hawksmoor's Codrington Library (All Souls College), c. 1900" by whatsthatpicture is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

When she needed materials copied or was not in Oxford, Guiney wrote to correspondents at the Bodleian for help. She seems to have been in contact with the Parker family, especially Evaline Parker, from 1903 onward. In March 1903, she facilitated copying for a Mr Gibbon, who kept losing the Parkers' address and writing to them through friends; and in September 1903 pronounced herself very satisfied with a transcription she had requested for her own work.

The bulk of the correspondence dates from between 1908 and 1911, when Guiney was collecting material for her study of seventeenth century English Catholic poets, published posthumously as Recusant Poets, editing the works Henry Vaughan and William Alabaster, and working on various historical essays. The first letter of the series concerns her efforts to gather enough historical evidence to persuade the Bishop of Bristol to dedicate the newly-established Catholic church of St Ives to St Ia.

Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, 8 March 1908; Library Records d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries.

8 March, 1908

Dear Miss Parker,

You may possibly remember me, and your own good services to me, some years back? I should like to claim them again, if I may, as I cannot get back to the precious Bodleian before Easter. I enclose a letter from a friend of mine, a Cornish priest. There is a new Church (R.C.) building at St Ives: he wishes the dedication to stand in the name of the ancient patroness of that borough, Saint Ia. The same was often written Eia, Hya, or even Hy. Can you find her name and date in the Roman Martyrologies? What date do the Bollandists give, Oct. 27 or Feb. 3rd? She is supposed to have been a sixth-century Irish princess, one of the missionary band martyred at Hayle on the south coast of Cornwall. Whatever you can discover will be welcome. (The only references I now know are Baring-Gould, and Smith's Dict. Christ. Biog.) Old Irish Martyrologies would be likely to have her. Look up, too, the point underlined by me in the letter. All this at your leisure.

But as soon as you find it convenient, I should be grateful to have you give me two Latin texts for Zechariah, IX, 17, "For how great is His goodness" etc: one as it stands in Beza (1519-1605), one as in the Vulgate Bible.

Best wishes from yours faithfully,

Louise I. Guiney

Her research in 1908 seems to have focused on seventeenth-century poets John Denham, William Cartwright, and Richard West; when called back to America by her mother's illness late that year, part of Guiney's preparations for her departure focused on gathering what she might need for her work.

Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, December 1908. Library Records, d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries

December 1908

Dear Miss Parker,

Could you possibly let me have these refs. to Twyne Mss? and I will most gladly apply to the Registrars for the needed permission and I thank you for telling me how to go to work. Unfortunately, in view of my going back to America next month (for a quite indefinite period) I have packed away all my reference papers except those needed for my own final explorations at 'the ever-blessed Bod.' and unless you happen to have preserved my note, I shall be in a muddle! I got home from Winchcombe late last evening, and found your letter awaiting me here.

With every best wish, yours,

Louise I. Guiney 

Once established back in Boston, Guiney relied on Parker to keep her supplied with transcripts and references from Oxford.

Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, 1 February 1909. Library Records, d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries

February 1, 1909

Dear Miss Parker:

Many thanks for the very nice transcripts from the Twyne Mss which came two days ago, and for which I enclose the 8s due. You will not be able to lose touch with me, for I shall from time to time need an intermediary at the well-beloved Bodleian. I can hardly realise as yet that I have Gone Down in such a whole-sale fashion! There is deep snow here, and severe cold, but plenty of sun too.

Yours faithfully,

L.I. Guiney

Auburndale, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 

Throughout 1909, Guiney regularly sought references and transcripts from Oxford, and passed on greetings to the friends she had made in the library.

Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, 7 April 1909. Library Records d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries.

7 April 1909

Dear Miss Parker, 

You see I am by no means independent of your kind serviceableness as yet! You are to consult your own convenience entirely in regard to time, etc. Please remember me to Mr Gibson, and also to Miss Stark. How I miss that old musty H-shaped building words cannot say.

Yours with best wishes,

L.I. Guiney 

After her mother's death in February 1910, Guiney did not write again until she had returned to England in June. The seventeenth century continued to fascinate her; and that summer she started working on a study of Oliver Cromwell's conscience, for which she requested references.

August 1 1910 c/o Mrs Harrison, Church St, Ashbourne, Derbyshire

Dear Miss Parker,

Please help me once more! and I will not bother you again for some time. I am following up some interesting Royalist allegations in regard to my Lord Protector and wish to collate some passages, but cannot get up the energy to leave this bookless hermitage just for that. If you are in Oxford and can attack the enclosed references at the Bodleian at once, I shall be much delighted. The ones I have put X against are the ones I want to hear from first; the other four might follow later. The old writers, and Mozley, if he has anything to say about Oliver's looks or supposed bad conscience, are most to my purpose. Kindly copy out all essential passage on the two points named, and send results to this address.

Yours gratefully, 

L.I. Guiney 

Louise Imogen Guiney to Evaline Parker, 1 August 1910, Library Records d. 408. Photo: Hope Williard, Courtesy of Bodleian Libraries

...Please search all these (by indexes or otherwise) for two points only:

1. Any description of Oliver's face which mentions gloomy-looking eyes or lips unusually red.

2. Any description or analysis of an uneasy conscience breeding such fears as made him wear armour under his clothing, etc especially as affecting the gloomy looks aforesaid.

While the article seems never to have been published, Guiney's love of the Bodleian, and its place at the centre of her scholarly universe, continued unabated. After the death of Bodley Librarian, Edward Nicholson, whose uncompromising efforts to modernise the library left him with a divided legacy, Guiney wrote to her friend Strickland Gibson, an assistant at the library:

Longwall Cottage, Oxford, 26th March, 1912.

Dear Mr. Gibson, This is nothing to answer. I only wanted to tell you that I have sent a few paragraphs to the Oxford Times (to be in print, I suppose, this coming Friday) about Mr. Nicholson; I should like your eye to see it there. I hope it shows no undue heat, but it is astonishing to me to hear such remarks about him as I have lately heard from several North Oxford quarters, and I could but do my best to thwart them. I can't bear it, this stupidity which finds petty faults in so large-souled a man. As you imagine, Bodley won't seem the same place to me. I really loved him much. You have all my sympathy in the loss of so good a friend.

Yours ever sincerely,

L. I. Guiney (published in Grace Guiney, Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney)

 

During the First World War, Guiney was based in Oxford, writing to her friend Helen Ellis:

It is hard to keep one's daily rounds unperturbed, with the German "frightfulness" likely to burst at any moment over the adored spires of Oxford. A bomb on the Bodleian, — and certainly my life, for one, would be worth little thereafter. (3 February 1915, published in Grace Guiney, Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney) 

After her death in 1920, a small collection of Guiney's research notes were donated to the Bodleian by her executors. There are several collections of her letters in American libraries (including the Library of Congress, Loyola University Chicago, Vassar, and Wellesley) but the letters to the Parker family seem to be little known and I hope that this post serves to bring them to greater attention. Guiney's letters to Evaline Parker shed an interesting light on her scholarly work and her life in England. Given her long and passionate love for the Bodleian, one imagines her being rather pleased that her letters became a part of it.

Further Reading 

Henry G. Fairbanks, Laureate of the Lost: Louise Imogen Guiney (New York, 1975)

Grace Guiney, Letters of Louise Imogen Guiney, 2 vols (New York, 1926)

Louise Guiney, Recusant Poets (New York, 1939)

Eva Mabel Tenison, Louise Imogen Guiney, Her Life and Works, 1861–1920 (London, 1923)