The Mill-Taylor Collection at LSE Takes up a Mere Five Shelves of Volumes and Boxes
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an arcHivist’s nightMare tHe papers of JoHn stuart Mill The Mill-Taylor Collection at LSE takes up a mere five shelves of volumes and boxes. It seems a small space for such a major figure – particularly when compared with the fourteen shelves of Passfield papers left by Beatrice and Sidney Webb and the even more extensive fifty-five shelves which make up William Beveridge’s voluminous papers. The size of the archive is a reflection of the vicissitudes of the archives in the 136 years since Mill’s death. By Sue Donnelly. 14 Journal of Liberal History 70 Spring 2011 an arcHivist’s nightMare tHe papers of JoHn stuart Mill ohn Stuart Mill died in to England. Early in 1905 one of the intention of preparing them for Avignon in 1873 of ery- Mary’s friends, Mary Ann Trim- publication. Elliot was the grand- sipelas, a skin condition ble, who had visited Avignon with son of the 3rd Earl of Minto. He endemic to the region, and Mary Taylor, travelled to France had studied at Cambridge but left although there were calls for accompanied by a married couple before getting a degree, in order to Jhis body to be interred in Westmin- to do: fight in the Boer War. He left the ster Abbey, he was buried in Avi- army in 1902, taking up scientific gnon in the tomb he had had built … the work of three months in and philosophical studies and later for his beloved wife, Harriet Taylor three weeks. Half a ton of letters writing on both Herbert Spen- Mill. Following his death his step- to be sorted, all manner of rub- cer and Henry Bergson. In 1910 a daughter, Helen Taylor, continued bish to be separated from useful two-volume edition of the letters to live in Avignon, retaining her things, books to be dusted and appeared, published by Longman stepfather’s papers and for thirty selected from, arrangements to with an introduction by Elliot and a years after his death refusing all be made for sale, and 18 boxes to note on Mill’s life by Mary Taylor.3 requests to publish his letters: be packed.2 Elliott wrote to Lord Courtney, the Liberal peer, in 1910 indicating I have all my dear step father’s On 21–28 May 1905 a book sale was that the experience had not been an letters preserved, looked held at Avignon. Some of the books entirely happy one. First of all there through from time to time by and manuscripts were bought by a were restrictions on which letters myself, arranged in order by local bookseller, Romanille, who could be included: myself, and left by him in my sold a volume of manuscripts of hands with directions, verbal minor works to Professor George As to the private letters of Mill and written, to deal with them Herbert Palmer of Harvard. The to his wife & daughter, we hesi- according to my judgement. volume is now MS Eng 1105 in the tated for a very long time about When the more pressing task of Houghton Library at Harvard. The them; but Miss Taylor, who is a the publication of the mss is com- dispersal of the Mill-Taylor archive lady of very peculiar ideas and pleted, I shall, if I live, occupy had begun and, although later habits, did not wish them to be myself with his correspondence, scholars might strive to bring the published. She has it in her mind if I do not live it will be for my papers back together and to create to bring out another volume literary executors to decide what full published editions, the archive in a few years time, consisting to do with it.1 used and created by John Stuart exclusively of Mill’s letters to his Cameo of John Mill was destroyed, never again to wife, daughter, and sisters; but However, as Helen Taylor grew Stuart Mill as be recreated. wants to delay this until the last old and frail, her niece, Mary a young man. After Helen Taylor’s death in of Mill’s sisters is dead. Whether Taylor, the daughter of Harriet (LSE archives, 1907, the letters were inherited by it will ever be done, I cannot say. Taylor Mill’s second son, Alger- GB97/Mill-Taylor/ her niece Mary Taylor. The letters She guards the letters very jeal- non, persuaded her aunt to return Box4/57) were lent to Hugh S. R. Elliot, with ously; and it was only after much Journal of Liberal History 70 Spring 2011 15 an arcHivist’s nightMare: tHe papers of JoHn stuart Mill pressure and persuasion that I ‘as to the 1918, it seems there was a typescript letters, notebooks, diaries, and texts was allowed to see them at all.’4 and Mary Taylor was in negotiation of articles and speeches. Most of the private let- with Longmans, Green & Com- correspondence belonged to Helen It was also clear that Elliot and Mary pany through a literary agent, A. P. Taylor, including letters relating to Taylor had disagreed violently over ters of Mill Watts. But the reasons for the fail- her role as Mill’s literary executor. the role of Harriet Taylor Mill and ure to publish were lost with the The papers were seen as a collection Helen Taylor in Mill’s life, which to his wife & destruction of the archives of the and Geoffrey Allen, in an article on had led to Mary Taylor adding her publishers, agents and Mary Tay- the Manuscript Collections in the own account of Mill’s personal life daughter, we lor’s solicitors in the London blitz. British Library of Political and Eco- to the volume, as Elliot described in Hayek, in his introduction to the nomic Science published in 1960, a letter to Leonard Courteney: hesitated for Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill, described them as having ‘no archi- a very long reports that Mary Taylor suffered val unity’.6 As to her published introduction, a nervous breakdown, accompa- From 1926 onwards the Library following mine in the book, it time about nied by insomnia and illusions. bought Mill-related materials either was entirely an afterthought. In She was sectioned and committed singly or in groups as they came on the study of the private letters, them; but to an institution, Northumberland the market, although the Library’s I formed a very unfavourable House, in March 1918. She died in acquisitions register only begins opinion both of Mrs Mill and of Miss taylor, the November. to indicate regular purchases and Miss Helen Taylor. It appeared With the death of Mary Taylor, gifts from 1943 onwards. Profes- to me that they were both self- who is a lady the family papers passed into the sor Hayek advertised widely for ish and somewhat conceited hands of her executors, the National information about Mill letters in women, and that Mill (who must of very pecu- Provincial Bank, who, on the report the hopes of publishing an edition have been a very poor judge of of Mr P. W. Sergeant, decided to which finally became John Stuart character) was largely deceived liar ideas sell most of the material at auction, Mill and Harriet Taylor: their corre- with regard to them. Of course I although the more personal material spondence and subsequent marriage.7 could not state my views openly and habits, was felt inappropriate for public sale. Sadly, by its publication in 1951, in a book which is published by The first sale took place on 29 March Hayek had left LSE and the letters Miss Taylor at her own expense. did not wish 1922 with the papers being split he had collected were given to Fran- But in my original introduc- into lots. The total return from the cis Mineka at Cornell University. tion, I found it impossible to them to be sale was £276 17s. – £200 of which In 1943 the National Provincial allude to the women without was raised by the purchase of a set of Bank presented the Library with unconsciously conveying into published.’ seventy-seven letters from Thomas seventy items relating to the family, my language some suggestion Carlyle to Mill by the Trustees of probably the items deemed inap- of what I thought. To this Miss Carlyle House. Most of the lots were propriate for public sale in 1922. Mary Taylor took the strongest bought by various London booksell- In the same year, Philippa Fawcett possible exception. I reconsid- ers, and many of the manuscripts donated forty-two letters between ered the whole matter, but found now in US libraries derive from Mill and her father, Henry Fawcett. myself unable to speak any more this sale. A further fourteen lots Presumably concerns about war favourably of them than I had were sold on 27 June 1927 (the gap damage were leading owners to done. For some days Miss Taylor between the sales is unexplained), consider the future of their collec- declined even to see me, and we mainly consisting of letters to Mill. tions. After the war, King’s Col- were completely at a deadlock, The purchasers included Yale Uni- lege Cambridge donated the letters but at last it was agreed that I versity Library and the economist bought at the 1927 auction by Lord should omit all mention of Mill’s John Maynard Keynes. Keynes, which had passed to King’s private life and that Miss Taylor The archive was no more; it College on his death in 1946. Lord should herself write a second was scattered around the globe, Keynes had intended to pass the introduction (for which I took some items to be preserved and letters to LSE, and King’s College no responsibility) and say what others to be lost forever.