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Frederick Locker-Lampson Correspondence

 Collection
Call Number: OSB MSS 152

Scope and Contents

The Frederick Locker-Lampson Correspondence is a collection of over 2,000 letters, accompanied by a few manuscripts and family papers, consisting primarily of letters received by Frederick Locker-Lampson. In addition to substantial quantities of letters from members of his immediate and extended families, the collection contains letters from scores of English literary figures, including F.T. Palgrave, Simeon Solomon, James Gibbs, and Richard Garnett. Some of Locker-Lampson's better-known literary friends and colleagues, Including Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Austin Dobson, are represented by single letters, although there are no substantive correspondences with them.

The collection also contains correspondence pertaining to Frederick's father, Edward Hawke Locker, including letters to his wife written during his naval career, and letters from the Irish author John Wilson Croker.

Dates

  • 1770 - 1897
  • Majority of material found within 1853 - 1885

Creator

Language of Materials

In English; some letters in French and Italian.

Conditions Governing Access

The materials are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The Frederick Locker-Lampson Correspondence is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. on the James Osborn and Marie-Louise Osborn Fund, 1993.

Ex libris Jonathan Locker-Lampson. Formerly on deposit at the East Sussex Record Office Library, United Kingdom.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in the exact order in which it was received, which is the order followed by the Historical Manuscript Commission in their item-level volume and bundle list. To quote from their introduction: "The bulk of the papers listed here are mounted and bound in six large albums; the remaining (mainly later) papers are in a number of bundles. The contents of the albums were mounted by James Gibbs in an approximately chronological sequence, which has been preserved in the Contents list." With the exception of the physical re-housing of the material in boxes and folders, no further arrangement work has been done on this collection.

Researchers should note that this guide can be used only in conjunction with the List of Locker-Lampson Mss.; a copy is housed in Box 1 of this collection. A second copy has been cataloged as Osborn e18. To search for a particular correspondent or topic in that index, look in the alphabetical lists in Parts II and III of that work, note the volume, page and document (or bundle and document) numbers given in the entry, and match them to the volume/bundle and item number spans given for boxes in the listing below. Part I of the List is the item level contents list of the collection. Researchers should look through this as well to determine if there are other items of interest that were not included in the alphabetical index.

Extent

11.89 Linear Feet (33 boxes)

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.lockerlamp

Abstract

The Frederick Locker-Lampson Correspondence is a collection of over 2,000 letters, accompanied by a few manuscripts and family papers, consisting primarily of letters received by Frederick Locker-Lampson. In addition to substantial quantities of letters from members of his immediate and extended families, the collection contains letters from scores of English literary figures, including F.T. Palgrave, Simeon Solomon, James Gibbs, and Richard Garnett. Some of Locker-Lampson's better-known literary friends and colleagues, Including Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Austin Dobson, are represented by single letters, although there are no substantive correspondences with them.

The collection also contains correspondence pertaining to Frederick's father, Edward Hawke Locker, including letters to his wife written during his naval career, and letters from the Irish author John Wilson Croker.

Frederick Locker-Lampson, 1821-1895

Frederick Locker-Lampson was born Frederick Locker at the Royal Naval Hospital in 1821, the third child of Edward Hawke Locker, the civil commissioner for the hospital. He was educated at several preparatory schools before becoming a junior clerk in a colonial broker's office in 1837. From 1841 to 1849 he held a series of offices with the Admiralty, including deputy reader and précis writer for Lord Haddington. He received a leave of absence for health reasons in May 1849, and began extensive travels in Europe.

On July 4,1850, Locker married Lady Charlotte Christian Bruce, a daughter of the Earl of Elgin and a friend of Queen Victoria. They had one daughter, Eleanor, who in 1878 married Lionel Tennyson, the son of the poet. Locker retired from government service, and despite his continued poor health was a member of several London clubs; his literary friends included Thackeray, Tennyson, Trollope, Kinglake, Lamartine, Lord Lytton, and George Eliot. He also collected fine and rare books, particularly Elizabethan imprints, Louis XVI furniture, and Chinese porcelain. The Lockers often summered at Frogmore House, one of the royal retreats.

In 1857 he published his first and only collection of original verse, London Lyrics, a ninety page volume that received several editions during his lifetime. Lyra elegantiarum, an anthology of occasional verse, appeared in 1867. Lady Charlotte Bruce Locker died in 1872, and in 1874 Locker married Hannah Jane Lampson, a children's author who was also the heiress of Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson of Rowfant, first baronet. The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters.

Locker published Patchwork, a collection of extracts he referred to as his "little Commonplace-Book," in 1879. His father-in-law died in 1885, and Locker took the name Lampson in order to inherit the family estates. Locker-Lampson settled at Rowfant, and in 1886 privately published The Rowfant Library, A Catalogue. Edited by Alfred W. Pollard and R. H. Lister, the catalogue described the books, manuscripts, autographs, and works of art owned by Locker-Lampson. In the same year, his son-in-law Lionel Tennyson died of jungle fever during his voyage home from India. Two years later, Eleanor Locker Tennyson married the literary critic and politician Augustine Birrell.

Frederick Locker-Lampson died at Rowfant on May 30th, 1895. A volume of memoirs and genealogical information, My Reminiscences, was published in 1896, edited by Augustine Birrell, who also compiled a list of Locker-Lampson's late additions to his library. The Rowfant Library itself was sold to an American bookdealer, almost certainly Robert Dodd, in 1905.

Processing Information

The collection was received in 1993 in six folio albums and nine bundles of varying size, all of which had been listed at the item level by the British Historical Manuscripts Commission for their National Register of Archives.. The material was removed from these binders and housed in acid-free boxes and folders in the exact order in which it was received. The folders are annotated with volume, page, and document numbers in the case of the volumes, and bundle and document numbers for the bundled materials.

This finding aid is a key to the item-level HMC/NRA list, one copy of which is housed in Box 1 of this collection. A second copy has been cataloged as Osborn e18. Folder titles, consisting of a volume or bundle number followed by a page number (or numbers), were supplied by staff during initial processing.

Title
Frederick Locker-Lampson Correspondence
Author
Beinecke Staff
Date
2014 May 14
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

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