Showing 17741 results

This series contains loose photographs, drawings and photograph albums created and collected by Hella Scholz.

This collection contains photographs, correspondence, school records and ephemera accrued by Hella Scholz during her youth and early adulthood. They provide insights into her life in Germany before and during the Second World War, which revolved mainly around school, hobbies, boyfriends and holidays. Wartime administration and the Nazi regime feature faintly in the backdrop: Hella was a member of Hitler Youth and of Bundes Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), the girls’ wing of the Nazi Party youth movement. However, apart from owning a portrait of Adolph Hitler, there is no indication of Hella being a Nazi sympathiser, she was simply a young middle-class girl growing up during the Nazi regime. Some of the collection highlights include Hella’s correspondence with Günther Junge, a rare enough example of an exchange in which the letters of both parties survive, and an extensive photographic record of Hella’s life. The collection provides intimate glimpses of a life which remained remarkably happy and stable during an extraordinarily dark period of European history. Spanning as it does the rise and fall of National Socialism in twentieth-century Germany and post-war Britain, it forms a rewarding primary source for researchers of this era.

This collection contains material created and generated by the Armstrong and Kemmis families during their ownership of Moyaliffe House, county Tipperary, and includes both administrative records and personal documents. Seventeenth-century material is scarce and limited in the main to leases of small pockets of land in counties Tipperary and Limerick. A more unusual item from this period is the satirical manuscript poem On the Bill of Conformity (P6/2137), attributed to Henry Hall, one of only sixteen known copies in the world. Eighteenth-century administrative records are mainly of financial and legal nature and arise from the badly managed affairs of William Armstrong (1704-1768), which affected his brother, the Reverend John Armstrong, who succeeded to the estate. Of personal items, the collection of early eighteenth-century sermons (P6/375-P6/427) attributed to the Reverend Edward Armstrong, the Reverend John Armstrong and others is of particular interest.

The nineteenth-century administrative material relates predominantly to the management of the Moyaliffe estate, and the succession to and management and eventual disposal of the family’s estates in Mayo and Sligo. There are also some clerical records of interest, most notably material relating to tithe wars of the 1830s (P6/758-P6/766 and P6/789-P6/813), and the state of dilapidation of the Mansion House of the See of Tuam discovered after the death, in 1819, of the Most Reverend Honourable William Beresford, first Baron Decies, Archbishop of Tuam, whose daughter Catherine was married to the Reverend Willam Carew Armstrong (1791-1847) (P6/850-P6/860).

By far the most voluminous, and perhaps the most interesting, part of the collection is that relating to the twentieth century. The administrative records in this section are in the main concerned with the management not only of Moyaliffe House but also of Ballinacor, county Wicklow, home of Captain William Daryl Olphert Kemmis. There is also a large quantity of material relating to Moyaliffe Stud (P6/1547-P6/1595), and to the problem of succession to the Moyaliffe and Ballinacor estates following Captain Kemmis’s death without issue in 1965 (P6/1812-P6/1834). On the personal side, the extensive correspondence of Rosalie Armstrong and her daughter Jess provide a unique insight into the genteel Anglo-Irish lifestyle and the irrevocable changes wrought upon it by the onset of the First World War. Of unique significance are the letters of Captain Kemmis to his father (P6/1475-P6/1479), and the letters and diaries of Captain William Maurice (‘Pat’) Armstrong written during the First World War (P6/1209-P6/1212 and P6/1414-P6/1418), providing first-hand accounts of events as they unfolded in the various theatres of war.

The twentieth-century material was roughly arranged by Jess Kemmis, who also appears to have destroyed some of it for personal reasons. Items thus lost included letters written by her niece, Bettyne Spencer (née Everard), to justify her actions during the Moyaliffe House dispute (for which see P6/1821-P6/1831). The letters were destroyed by Mrs Kemmis because she felt her niece’s views to be wrong. Also missing are Jess Kemmis’s diaries for the years 1955-1982 which she is known to have kept assiduously with the view to their permanent preservation within the family papers.

Jess Kemmis provided many explanatory notes and dates relating to the Armstrong Papers and the people and events to which they relate. These notes, which can be found scattered throughout the collection, should be treated with due caution as most, while well-intentioned and often helpful, can be misleading or inaccurate, written as they were in advanced old age.

The Glin Papers, unfortunately, do not reflect the long history of the family, as many of the older documents were allegedly burnt in a tantrum by the aptly nick-named ‘Cracked Knight’ or John Fraunceis Eyre FitzGerald, 25th Knight of Glin. They date from 1800 onwards and have been arranged into eight series according to the tenure of the various Knights.

Series A, which relates to John Bateman FitzGerald, 23rd Knight of Glin, contains a single document in the form of a volume which contains a printed copy of a private Act of Parliament passed to force John Bateman to raise money by mortgage or otherwise to pay off incumbrances. The Act shows the incumbrances to amount to almost £14,000 and notes that Colonel John had incurred legal costs of at least £1500 and had spent more than £6000 on Glin Castle and demesne.

Series B relates to John Fraunceis FitzGerald, 24th Knight of Glin and ranges from his marriage settlement with the long-suffering Bridgetta Eyre (1812) to a deed poll appointing him as High Sheriff of Limerick (1830). The marriage settlement burdened the estate to the tune of £8,000, and when his eldest son and heir married in 1835, the estate was further burdened with £6,000 to account for the portions of younger children. By the time of his death in 1854, John Fraunceis had managed to create or oversee principal sum incumbrances amounting to at least £14,000. There are also documents in this section which show how short-term cash was raised, as was the practice in 19th century, by creating mortgages. This series also contains the constabulary journals and personal journals of William Massey Blennerhassett, who married John Fraunceis’ daughter Margaretta Sophia FitzGerald (P1/20-33).

Section C concerns John Fraunceis Eyre FitzGerald, 25th Knight of Glin, the aforementioned ‘Cracked Knight’. The most interesting of the documents related to this section are the mortgages raising money from the Glin lands and reflect the almost ever-present insolvency facing the family (P1/44-50). One in particular from 1864 (P1/48) lists incumbrances on the estate which then totalled £14,000 in principle sums not including the £1539 charge that was being transferred. It would appear, therefore, that incumbrances had risen to approximately £15,500 by the end of The Cracked Knight’s tenure. Also of note are the estate day books which span form 1858-1867 and record the receipt of rents from the estate (P1/51-52).

Series D concerns Desmond John Edmund FitzGerald, 26th Knight of Glin. The documents in this section comprise mainly leases, conveyances and mortgages relating to lands on the Glin estate. Also of interest are the Long Rock fishery records which span from 1866-1890 (P1/144-145). Another document of note is the will of his cousin, Jane Augusta Richardson (P1/148) as a later annotation to the document reads: ‘The beautiful Mrs. Richardson probably mistress of Desmond John Edmund FitzGerald, Knight of Glin’.

Series E relates to Desmond FitzJohn Lloyd FitzGerald, 27th Knight of Glin. The documents in this section contain the usual leases, mortgages and marriage settlements but there is also a small amount of personal correspondence which is of interest, including a letter from his father-in-law, the 4th Earl of Dunraven, in which he declares that if FitzJohn were to hire a woman to look after the young Desmond Windham Otho, ‘she would have to be appallingly old and ugly to save your character’ (P1/303). They also reflect FitzJohn’s interest shooting parties and golf, as many surviving letters written by him to his son, Desmond Windham Otho, while attending boarding school, describe little else (P1/540).

Series F relates to Desmond Windham Otho FitzGerald, 28th Knight of Glin. In addition to leases, conveyances, con-acre agreements and rental accounts (P1/604-638), a large amount of material in this series concerns household and estate accounts with cashbooks and hundreds of tradesmen’s receipts and invoices for various goods and services (P1/639-695). There are also account books for the Long Rock Fishery, which was established in part by the Knight’s grandfather, Desmond John Edmund. The weirs were closed in 1935 when the Government took them over (P1/707-709). The failure of the 28th Knight of Glin’s garage business also features in this series and illustrates clearly the bitter legal wrangle that followed (P1/550-555). More personal items in this series relate to the Knight’s wife, Veronica Villiers. An avid correspondent, the collection is home to many hundreds of letters written her by family members, friends and acquaintances (P1/370-497). There is also much official correspondence with stockbrokers, solicitors, and land agents (P1/354-369). Other interesting items in Veronica’s possession include watercolour sketches (ca. 1850) by her great-aunt, Amelie T. Amherst (P1/504-506), and a small collection of black and white photographs (P1/507-518).

Series G concerns Desmond John Villiers FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin. The papers contained in this series include school reports (P1/744, P1/749) and volumes of lecture notes from his time at UBC and Harvard (P1/751-776); leases, undertakings and rentals (P1/777-817); and correspondence concerned with the estate (P1/818-843). There is much in this series devoted to the afore-mentioned refurbishment of the Castle, including correspondence with Horatio Ray Milner (P1/844-852), and plans and drawings of the restoration work (P1/854-878). There are also very interesting documents related to the development of Glin Castle as a guest house (P1/884-948), which show how the estate survived by utilising the tourist trade. Correspondence from these papers reflects the success of Irish tourism enterprises, especially in this case, in attracting the upper end of the American market. Milner also provided money to improve the farm at Glin in order that it become viable and self-sustainable. Correspondence, farm invoices, account books and bank statements are the main document-types in this series (P1/949-1138).

This collection comprises printed and manuscript materials primarily relating to county Tipperary collected by Timothy Looney and research material assembled and generated by him for local history lectures and walking tours. The most notable element of the collection is the substantial quantity of estate papers relating to Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, county Tipperary, built for Cornelius O’Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore in c. 1810. The building was demolished in stages by the Land Commission between 1957 and 1960, during which time the bulk of the family papers were destroyed. The papers salvaged by Timothy Looney (for which see sub-series P43/1/1) include a near complete set of rentals from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century account books, extensive estate correspondence from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century, and a range of townland map surveys from 1715 to 1898 primarily for counties Cork and Tipperary. Clogheen Fever Hospital records (sub-series P43/1/1/2/3) and the 1821 census records of Clogheen (P43/1/6/2) are also worth noting, as is the unusually large set of correspondence between Viscount Lismore’s tenants in counties Cork and Tipperary and his agent William Rochfort from the turn of the twentieth century (sub-series P43/1/1/5/1/3/1-2). The Looney collection further contains a quantity of estate papers from Castle Hyde and Doneraile Court in county Cork, and Castle Otway in county Tipperary.

Early nineteenth-century manuscript map of county Tipperary in nine linen-backed sections drawn on a scale of two inches to an Irish mile.

This sub-series contains estate correspondence to and from William Rochfort, land agent to the Shanbally Castle estate in county Tipperary in the late 19th and early 20th century.