DOROTHY WHITNEY ELMHIRST: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE

Collection: Papers of Dorothy Elmhirst
Level: Series
RefNo: DWE/G
Extent:17 boxes
Title: DWE General
Date: 1908-1996

Description: Dorothy Elmhirst's general correspondence reveals her many interests and connections in Britain and America. The series consists of an alphabetical correspondence file and 6 boxes of general subject files on topics including politics, peace, religion, and birth control. The weekend guest is a theme, with much correspondence generated by visitors to the Elmhirsts' home at Dartington Hall. But there is also substantive correspondence with many literary and intellectual leaders of the day.

Dorothy Elmhirst's American background gave her access to political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. There is therefore correspondence with Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, US Secretary of Labor (Labour). Correspondence with British politicians includes letters from Stafford Cripps, Nancy Astor and Norman Angell. The biologist and writer Julian Huxley was a close friend, visiting Dartington on many occasions. Eduard Lindeman of the New York School for Social Work was as an early adviser to the Elmhirsts. Dorothy's lifelong friends are represented by their letters, including Ethel Roosevelt Derby. Other writers include journalists such as H N Brailsford in England, and Herbert Croly in America. Agatha Christie visited, so did W H Auden, Frances Cornford, Arthur Waley, Felix Greene and H G Wells. Basil H Liddell Hart and his family came to stay near Dartington Hall during the early years of World War II. The Liddell Hart correspondence includes many lectures on the war.

Letters from poets often include manuscript poems, for instance 11 manuscript poems included with the letters of Robert Graves, and presumed to be by the poet. Artist correspondents include Clare Leighton, and painter/psychiatrist Dr Grace Pailthorpe. The Spanish musician and general, Gustavo Duran came to stay in 1939, so there is a long manuscript about the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. House guests were often asked to contribute a Sunday evening lecture to estate members and other guests, and in many cases these talks survive as manuscripts collected by Dorothy Elmhirst.

There is extensive correspondence between Gerald Heard, Margaret Isherwood and Dorothy Elmhirst. Others interested in psychology and religion included Dr William Sheldon, who came to report on Dartington Hall School, and left to study with Jung in Zurich.

Michael Young was one of the first pupils at Dartington Hall School. His correspondence with Dorothy Elmhirst is descriptive, mentioning student and worker demonstrations in London in 1933, social activities and social conditions; his law studies; debt collection; Communists; political beliefs; and life at Toynbee Hall in London's East End. Young's letters from America recount visits to homestead camps, Pennsylvania steel mills, West Virginia coal mines, unionising work; and a description of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Subject files include topics such as peace; the Peace Pledge Union, (Dorothy Elmhirst was a member); politics and elections; welfare and birth control; weaving, including letters from Elizabeth Peacock about the banners she designed and made for Dartington's Great Hall.

Letters from clergy include correspondence from Canon R A Edwards, rector of Dartington parish, discussing religion and the role of the Church in parish life, and the effect of changing social values in the village between 1940 and 1949. There is an extraordinary report about the Dartington Hall experiment written to the Bishop of Exeter by Edwards about 1948.

Materials in the series include essays, speeches, interviews, and journals. One such journal, 'Notes in India', describes the Elmhirsts' visit to India in 1930, with intimate descriptions of meetings with Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.

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