Letters from Lady Catherine Ashburnham (1890-1953) of Ashburnham Place in Ashburnham,...

<p>For Gunnis's transcripts of of ASH 840-847, the letter-books of John Ashburnham, first baron, 1696-1708, transferred by Francis Steer on 14 December 1965 (ACC 707), see ASH 4445-4448; for records relating to the Ashburnham estate, see ASH; Earl of Ashburnham estate ledgers 1893-1927 (ACC 2449); estate papers, 19c-20c (ACC 2767, 2773); plans of Ashburnham Place, 1959-1962 (ACC 5732); items concerning the death of the Revd John Bickersteth, 1991-1992 (ACC 6595); manuscript album of verse by Mary Ann Gilbert of Eastbourne, presented to Lord and Lady Ashburnham, 1823 (ACC 7903); photocopies of portraits of members of the Ashburnham family by Samuel Cousins, 1814 (ACC 9344); composite manorial rentals of the Ashburnham estate, 1860-1921 (AMS 6561)</p>

Donated 22 December 2003 (ACC 8920)

On the death of Rupert Gunnis the letters, together with Gunnis's transcripts of the letter-books of John Ashburnham, were given to the Kent Archives Office by his brother Nigel Gunnis of Sissinghurst. In November of that year the Kent County Archivist Felix Hull handed them to Francis Steer, the County Archivist of West Sussex. Steer, as editor of Sussex Archaeological Collections, had published Gunnis's article on John Ashburnham's letters in 1959 (SAC 88, pp 3-14); his catalogue of the Ashburnham archives was published in 1958. The transcripts were added to the Ashburnham archive and eventually listed as ASH 4445-4448, but Steer thought that Gunnis's letters to Lady Catherine were sufficiently personal to warrant a closure-period of 35 years; that he accomplished by having them bound and taking them home. On Steer's death in September 1978, the letters were presumably transferred, with his other papers, to the Oxford offices of the Marc Fitch Fund, of which Steer had been was honorary secretary from 1956 to 1977. In 2003, shortly after the retirement of Steer's successor as secretary to the fund, a member of staff of the West Sussex Record Office saw several volumes with the bookplate of Francis Steer in an Oxford antiquarian bookshop. On enquiry he was told that the books had been sold by the Marc Fitch Library, which was then at Woodstock, and was given these letters, which had come with the Fitch books, free of charge by the bookseller.

The letters have been bound together in a file labelled 'Gunnis letters'. The donor, who is on the staff of the West Sussex Record Office, saw several volumes with the bookplate of Francis W Steer, a former county archivist, in Waterfield's, an Oxford antiquarian bookshop. On enquiry he was told that the books had been sold by the Marc Fitch Library, which was then at Woodstock, and was given these letters, which had come with the Fitch books, free of charge by the bookseller. The papers had been given to the Kent Record Office by Rupert's brother, Nigel Gunnis, and were then handed to Steer, the editor of the catalogue of the Ashburnham archives, which was published in 1958. Steer thought that they should be closed for 35 years, and must have put the letters with his own books, where they were forgotten and dispersed after his death. They had already been bound together by a conservator, presumably from the West Sussex Record Office.