MORE, LATER MORE MOLYNEUX FAMILY OF LOSELEY PARK, GUILDFORD, LOOSE CORRESPONDENCE...

The LM/COR series chiefly comprise loose letters relating to successive members of the More and More Molyneux family and some associated families (eg. letters to Sir Thomas Cawarden (d.1559) in LM/COR/2/- and letters of the Gresham family, 1604-1691 (LM/COR/7/-) between c.1450 and the late 19th cent. - Some of the correspondence is of a private, personal nature but much relates to the official business of members of the family and does not constitute an archive of documents with intrinsically separate functions to those documents in the main body of family records (LM/-) and the bound volumes of 'historical correspondence' (6729). - Indeed many letters in LM/COR/- relate to exactly the same business as other items in the other two deposits and can be linked through the database described below.

The descriptions in this catalogue of all the letters between c.1450 and c.1689 held as LM/COR/1-6 & 8-9 (ie. excluding LM/COR/7 relating to the Gresham family), together with the contents of the 'historical correspondence' volumes (6729) have been loaded onto a searchable and indexed database. - This facilitates searching within date ranges, by author or recipient, by business to which the letter relates, or by subject. - It also permits letters relating to the same subject but hitherto split between volumes, or between volumes and the loose correspondence, to be reconnected. - The database is available at Surrey History Centre.

On deposit, the documents were chronologically grouped according to the ownership of Loseley Park. - These groupings have been retained. - The accumulation of the documents into a sequence of letters may well be attributable to an antiquarian interest (whether of members of the family or of William Bray, the family's agent) in compiling an epistolary collection: even aside from -/2/-, which belonged to Sir Thomas Cawarden, not all letters are to or between members of the More, More Molyneux and related families.

A varying amount of cataloguing work has been done on this archive. - The letters between c.1450 and c.1689 (LM/COR/1-6, 8-9) except those relating to the Gresham family (LM/COR/7) have been calendared in some detail. - This catalogue contains the 17th century correspondence, contained in LM/COR/4-6, 7-9. - In the case of the later material (LM/COR/10-14), no more than a chronological grouping has been achieved as yet, and no item references have been assigned.

<span class="wrapper"><p>For the main body of records of the More and More-Molyneux family and Loseley estate, see LM/-, the introduction to which gives an account of the family, their offices and estates and further cross-references; for the 'historical correspondence' volumes, see 6729/-.</p> <p>For microfilm and transcripts of records from all three deposits, see Zg/109/-.</p> <p>For microfilm of related letters and papers in the possession of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, see Z/407.</p></span>

There are no access restrictions.

Deposited by Major James More-Molyneux of Loseley Park, Guildford, in March 1971.