PENSON, Professor Dame Lillian Margery (1896-1963)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0505 PP5
Held at	: Royal Holloway, University of London   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/archives ›
Full title	: PENSON, Professor Dame Lillian Margery (1896-1963)
Date(s)	: 1921-1966
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 14 boxes or 0.14m3
Name of creator(s)	: Penson | Dame Lilian Margery | 1896-1963 | Professor of History
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born 1896; educated privately and at Birkbeck College and University College London, 1913-1917; Administrative Assistant and Personnel Officer, Ministry of National Service, 1917-1918, and War Trade Intelligence Department, 1918-1919; editor of peace handbooks prepared for the Paris Peace Conference, 1918; Lecturer, Birkbeck College, University of London, 1921-1930; part-time Lecturer, East London (later Queen Mary) College, London, 1923-1925; Member of the Board of Studies in History, 1924, and Member of the Board of Examiners in History, 1926, University of London; Vice-President of the Historical Association, 1930; Professor of Modern History, Bedford College, University of London, 1930-1962; Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of London, 1938-1944; Member of the Senate, University of London, 1940-1962; National Service, Intelligence Division, Ministry of Information, 1938-1939; Member of Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies, 1943-1945; Chairman of the Academic Council, University of London, 1945-1948; Vice-Chancellor, University of London, 1948-1951; Founder Member, 1948, and Chairman, 1953-1954, of the United States Educational Commission in the United Kingdom; DBE, 1951; Member of the Council, Salisbury College, Rhodesia, 1955; Honorary Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons, 1959; Member of the Council, 1928, Vice-President and Honorary Vice-President, 1959-1963, Royal Historical Society; Honorary degrees from Canterbury, Leeds, St Andrews, Southampton, Oxford, Sheffield, Cambridge, Belfast and Western Ontario, Canada; Emeritus Professor, 1962; retired 1962; died 1963.

Publications: assisted with British documents on the origin of the war, 1898-1914 (London, 1927); editor of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Longmans, London, 1940); Bibliography of modern history (London, 1922); Educational partnership in Africa and the West Indies: being a lecture on the Montague Burton Foundation in the University of Glasgow, delivered on 15^th April, 1954 (Jackson and Co, Glasgow, 1955); Foreign affairs under the third Marquis of Salisbury (Athlone Press, London, 1962); History and politics (Birkbeck College, London, 1949); The Bengal administrative system, 1786-1818 (Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol 4); The Colonial Agents of the British West Indies: a study in colonial administration, mainly in the eighteenth century (University Press, London, 1924); The colonial background of British foreign policy (Bell and Sons, London, 1930); The West Indies and the Spanish-American trade, 1713-1748; A century of diplomatic Blue Books, 1814-1914 (University Press, Cambridge, 1938); Foundations of British foreign policy (University Press, Cambridge, 1938); Short bibliography of modern European history, 1789-1935 (G Bell and Sons, London, 1936); Short bibliography of modern European history, 1709-1926 (London, 1927).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence relating to Penson's career, including personal correspondence, 1924-1962, with various, notably Geraldine Emma May Jebb, Principal of Bedford College, James Baxter, Sir Wilmot Parker Herringham, Chairman of Bedford College Council, Lascelles Abercrombie, Goldsmith's Reader in English at Oxford University, Stephen Gaslee, Professor Maj Harold William Vazeille Temperley, Professor of Modern History at Peterhouse, Cambridge University, Fanny Cecilia Johnson, former Head of the French Language and Medieval Literature Department at Bedford College, Benedict Humphrey Sumner, Fellow in Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford University, Professor Lizzie Susan Stebbing, Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College, Charles William Previté-Orton, Professor of Medieval History at Cambridge University, Dame Margaret Janson Tuke, former Principal of Bedford College, Margaret Deanesly, Professor of History at Bedford College, and Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, Chancellor of the University of London; correspondence, 1925, concerning Penson's appointment as a Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London; correspondence, 1930-1947, relating to Penson's time as Professor of Modern History, Bedford College, University of London, including details of her appointment, 1930, papers concerning the running of the History Department, 1931-1946, and papers relating to the International Committee of Historical Sciences, 1932-1936; correspondence and papers relating to the Institute of Historical Research, London, 1932-1936, and the Royal Historical Society, 1937-1938; correspondence and papers relating to the University of London, notably the establishment of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1932-1934, and the Colonial Studies Institute, 1942-1948, and Penson's positions on the University Board of Studies in History, 1930-1933, the Imperial Studies Committee, 1934-1935, the Board of Examiners in History, 1930-1942, and the Fulbright Scheme, 1960; correspondence, 1939-1960, concerning foreign universities, including the Universities of East Africa, Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Khartoum, Malta and the West Indies, the Nigerian College of Technology and the Royal Technical College of East Africa, with pamphlets on education in Africa; general academic correspondence, 1921-1960; correspondence concerning the award of a DBE in 1951. Material relating to works by Penson, [1922-1963], including manuscripts and research notes for books, such as the unpublished 'Obligation by treaty'; papers on Foreign Office archives and education in the colonies; texts of public lectures and addresses, radio talks, and history lectures, [1922]-1960; notebooks on medieval Europe to c1200 and European diplomatic history, [1922-1963]; reviews of books and articles by Penson, 1938, 1948-1959. Photographs, [1900-1960], mainly of Penson, but also including family and academic group photographs. Correspondence concerning Penson's Memorial Fund and Service, 1960-1966.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The collection is arranged in sections as outlined in the Scope and Content.

Conditions governing access:

Open to all registered users of the Royal Holloway, University of London Archives.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies may be supplied, subject to the condition of the original. Requests to publish original material should be directed to the College Archivist.

Finding aids:

Handlist available in the Royal Holloway, University of London Archives reading room.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Many of the papers in the collection were originally held in the History Department of Bedford College before being moved to the Archives. The papers were transferred from the Bedford College Archives when the College merged with Royal Holloway in 1985.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Allied Materials

Related material:

The Royal Holloway, University of London Archive also contains Bedford College History Department papers (BC AL280/1-9); Faculty of Arts papers (BC AL140-169); and Academic Board papers (BC AL100).

Correspondence by Penson, 1946-1963, is held at the Public Record Office, Kew, London.

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with general International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Feb 2000