HANDLIST OF THE PAPERS OF EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN IN THE JOHN RYLANDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MANCHESTER

PETER McNIVEN JOHN RYLANDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MANCHESTER The John Rylands University Library is remarkably well endowed with the papers of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English historians. The majority of these - most notably Thomas Frederick Tout and James Tait - were prominent members of the Department of History at Manchester. The collection which probably contains the greatest range of academic interest, however, is that of Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-92). } The whole of Freeman's career was spent in the south of England, and the only suggestion of a link with Manchester was his friendship with Adolphus William Ward, founder of the History School at Owens College and a leading figure in the setting-up of the federal Victoria University in 1880. 2 This personal connection may have played some part in the decision of the legatees of the Manchester engineer Sir , who had expressed the wish that his legacy should be expended on educational projects in Manchester, to purchase Freeman's library shortly after the latter's death in 1892. The Freeman Library formed the foundation of the University Library's holdings in history:3 originally kept together as a collection, the volumes were eventually distributed throughout the history sequences, where some can still be identified. Between 1902 and 1908, members of Freeman's family complemented the purchase of his library by donating his personal papers to the University,4 and it

1 For general biographical information on Freeman, the only major source is W.R.W. Stephens, The Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman (2 volumes, London: Macmillan, 1895). A useful short account, heavily based on the above, is the entry for Freeman in the Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter DNB) (London: Smith, Elder & Co./Oxford Univ. Pr. 1908-), xxii. 672-6. 2 For a brief resume of the history of Owens College, Manchester, and the Victoria University (the 'University of the North', comprising colleges in Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds), see P. McNiven, 'Manchester University Archive Collections in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester', Bulletin, 71:2 (Sumner 1989), 206-11. For Ward, see DNB, 1922-30. 881-3. 3 For Whitworth and his legac^. see DNB, xxi. 169-70; Stephens, Life and Letters, ii. 480. Freeman's books were recorded in a Catalogue of the Freeman Library Presented to the Owens College, compiled by J. Tait (Manchester: Sowler, 1894). 4 Manchester University Council Minutes, RA/1/1, 9. 352; RA/3/1, 3. 176, 5. 25, recorded in the unpublished finding list 'Archives of Owens College, the Victoria University and the Victoria : Revised and Enlarged List', reproduced on microfiche as part of Chadwyck-Healey's on-going project National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the I 'mted Kingdom, where it is numbered as document 0.063.032. 28 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY is these which are listed below. The arrangement adopted by the Library for this collection is as follows:

1/1/1-1/10/11 Correspondence 2/1/1-2/2/268 Printed writings by Freeman 3/1/1-3/8/1 Manuscript writings by Freeman, manuscript material relating to Freeman's writings, etc. 4/1/1-4/14/1 Architectural sketches by Freeman 5/1/1-10 Scrapbooks 6/1/1-6/2/50 Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts, 1881-82: printed material 7/1/1-7/2/4 Diplomas, honours, decorations etc. awarded to Freeman 8/1/1-8/3/17 Miscellaneous material relating to Freeman 9/1/1-9/5/21 Printed material not by or about Freeman. Freeman was a man of private means who neither had nor needed regular paid employment. While he might perhaps have regarded himself as a gentleman scholar, the modern world would probably describe him as a freelance historian and journalist. Freeman is best remembered as one of the leading writers of his time on English medieval history, and his most enduring monument is his six-volume The History of the Norman Conquest of England (1867-79). The virtually complete original manuscript of this work is preserved among Freeman's papers (3/1/4), along with that of his The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry I (1882 - 3/1/6) and his Old English History for Children (1869 - 3/1/3). Freeman was also an authority on the history of the ancient world, especially the development of Greek civilization, and this theme, which featured in his History of Federal Government (1863), of which the manuscript survives as 3/1/1, came to dominate his later years. As well as the manuscripts of two works on Sicily published between 1891 and 1892 (3/1/7-8), there are early chapters of an unpublished 'European History' extending only to early Roman times (3/2/1), and chapters intended for two works on Greek history (3/2/2-3). 5 Freeman's historical interests are reflected in much of his correspondence, which includes letters from his publisher, Alexander Macmillan, and the historians , Wil­ liam Stubbs and A.W. Ward (1/7), and 106 letters from Freeman to Green (1/8).6

5 Virtually all printed writings relating to Freeman have concentrated on his credentials as a historian. See, e.g., M.E. Bratchel, Edward Augustus Freeman and the Victorian Interpretation of the Norman Conquest (Ilfracombe: Stockwell, 1969); H.A. Cronne, 'Edward Augustus Freeman, 1823-1892', History, xxviii (1943), 78-92; J.P. Kenyon, The History Men: The Histoncal Profession in England since the Renaissance (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), especially 154-60; B. Wilkinson, 'Freeman and the Crisis of 1051', Bulletin, 22:2 (1938), 368-87; I.S. Zvavich, 'Eduard Friman i formirovanie angliiskoi istoriografii', Izvest. Akad. S.S.S.R., ser. istoni ifilosofii, III: 6 (1946), 535-46. 6 Items 1/7/1-849 in this handlist are letters to Freeman from correspondents, arranged alphabetically, who have not been placed in special subject categories. Nos. IS 1-126 are the only original letters in this collection from Freeman, arranged in alphabetical order of recipients.