LEONARD ELMHIRST: GENERAL

Description: Consists of an extensive general correspondence and subject file created by Leonard Elmhirst. Subseries include: general correspondence; local and national politics, with a Labour Party emphasis; correspondence with reporters and editors of newspapers and journals writing about the Dartington Hall experiment; correspondence and records of membership in many British societies and associations; notes and articles compiled by Leonard Elmhirst on a variety of subjects; World War I army notebooks and field manuals belonging to Leonard Elmhirst and two of his brothers, Christopher and William, who were killed in 1915 and 1916; records of peace and pacifism in the 1930s; broadcasting records documenting BBC radio and television appearances featuring Leonard Elmhirst dating between 1932 and 1973; and a nearly complete series of transcripts of oral history interviews with Leonard Elmhirst, recorded by historian Victor Bonham-Carter beween 1957 and 1962.

There are also records of honorary degrees conferred on Elmhirst. Additional subjects cover art; books and book collecting; Ireland in 1919; Leonard's childhood and education at S Anselms, Repton and Trinity College, Cambridge; progressive and alternative education; and the Federal Union.

Alphabetic correspondence covers many subjects, the most common being requests for a job, a loan, or for a tour of the Dartington Hall estate. But there is material of substance revealing Leonard Elmhirst's extensive contacts, socially, in government and in academia. Significant correspondence exists with actors, authors, poets, economists and historians, archbishops and electricians, philosophers and politicians.

The role of Dartington Hall as a progressive retreat is confirmed through records of events held at Dartington, such as the Cripps Conference, a meeting held in 1944, organised by Sir Stafford Cripps, and attended by David Owen, Max Nicholson and others, to consider means for the promotion of progressive political goals in postwar Britain.

Correspondence with Kay Starr, private secretary to Leonard Elmhirst, contains unique observations on the Dartington Hall experiment, World War II and American neutrality, and family news.

The list of correspondents includes Claude Colleer Abbott; Clifford Allen; Marcel Breuer; H N Brailsford; Rupert Brooke; Serge Chermayeff; Herbert Corner; Frances and John Cornford; Stafford Cripps; Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson; Prof J J Findlay; Rolf Gardiner; Victor Gollancz; Gerald Heard; Aldous and Julian Huxley; Andree Karpeles; John Maynard Keynes; Stephen King-Hall; Alister Hardy; George Lansbury; Basil H Liddell Hart; Lewis Lorwin; J J Mallon of Toynbee Hall; Herbert Morrison; A S Neil; Henry W Nevinson; Harold Nicolson; Max Nicholson; Sean and Eileen O'Casey; Charles K Ogden; Laurens van der Post; S K Ratcliffe; Seebohm Rowntree; Bertrand Russell; Dora Russell; George W Russell; Vita Sackville-West; George Bernard Shaw; T E Lawrence (Shaw); Stephen Spender; Siegfried Sassoon; C P Scott; Tomaso Gallarati Scotti; Richard Tawney; William Temple; Rifat Tirana; Arthur Waley; H G Wells; Ellen Wilkinson; Michael Young; and Beryl de Zoete.

Materials include letters and reports, diaries, notebooks, transcripts, poetry, and speeches.