Subject strengths: General

Collected by Edwin Clarke (1919-1996), the Clarke General Collection is a run of cuttings, illustrations, manuscripts and historic documents which are organised into two sequences: a subject sequence and a biographical sequence.

Subjects range from the weather, food and actors, to Victorian 'freakshow' acts whilst items in the biographical sequence include silk in red, white and blue with a note asserting them to be “Pieces of the silk of which the flags that waved over Napoleon were made.” (St. Helena, 1843); portraits of Charlotte Brontë (1857) and Daniel Defoe; manuscript letters from John Ruskin, William Wilberforce, the Duke of Wellington and Thomas Carlyle and a letter from Maggs Bros. (antiquarian bookseller) regarding an item which had been sold and posted (10 April 1912) - the letter is a duplicate as the original is believed to have been lost on the SS. Titanic.

Collection Name and Collection Reference Code:

Collection Name: Clarke (Edwin) General Archive

Archive Ref Code: ECG

Date Range of Material

1970 - 1995 (approx)

Type of Material

Edwin Clarke's personal archive

Size of Collection

48 Boxes

How To Order Items From This Collection

Please use the finding aid below to search through a list of the individual items we have in this collection.

If you find an item you would like to consult in the Special Collections Reading Room, simply make a note of the title of the item you are interested in and its box number.

You can then place your order by linking to our Request Form

Finding Aid

This collection has not been catalogued but a list of the contents of the boxes is available via these finding aids:

Clarke (Edwin) General Archive - Newspaper Cuttings

Clarke (Edwin) General Archive - Biography Collection

Copy Service

If you are unable to visit our reading room, we also have a virtual reading room service and digitisation service.

Other Resources

See Clarke (Edwin) Local Collection, Clarke (Edwin) Medical Collection, and Clarke (Edwin) Miscellaneous Collection for other collections associated with Edwin Clarke.

Material from this archive was used in our Treasures of the Month feature for August 2011, May 2012 and March 2015.