Treasury: Treasury and Cabinet Office Library: The Lister Collection

T 376

1593-1965

This series contains drawings, prints, cuttings, and other ephemera with notes and descriptive text created for selective public access provision. The collection is concerned with Whitehall - an area of national, architectural and political importance. It is a record of the physical changes to the area, drawn from contemporary records. In particular it illustrates the development and subsequent destruction by fire of the Palace of Whitehall.

Flat sheets within the series include: oversized to very small flat sheets, photographs, prints, mounted artwork, mounted photographs, reproduced plans, and reproduced engravings.

Many of the items in the collection are from dismembered copies of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century publications. Copies of these publications can be found in the collections of the British Library.

Comprises of:

• Original watercolours and drawings, and topographical and architectural prints and engravings of buildings in the Whitehall area from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries;
• Nineteenth and twentieth century newspaper cuttings. Many are annotated by Lister and form part of his working notes, which contain information about the sources and relevance of the selected items;
• Examples of the work of a number of famous architects, architectural and topographical draughtsmen, engravers and artists (including: Giovanni A Canale (called Canalletto), Hendrick Danckers, S H Grimm, Wenceslaus Hollar, Inigo Jones, William Kent, Sir Godfrey Kneller, Thomas Malton, John S Miller, Auguste C Pugin, Thomas Rowlandson, Paul Sandby, Thomas H Shepherd, Samuel Wale and George Vertue);
• Records from two exhibitions held at the Treasury. The first, 'Whitehall through the Centuries', took place in November 1948. The second, 'HM Treasury in Whitehall', was held in September 1998. Both displayed portions of the Collection. (Details of exhibition references are given at piece level scope and content)

Prints, drawings and engravings are arranged in chronological order. Lister's working notes and collection of newspaper cuttings and photographs are arranged by topic.

Treasury file on acceptance of the collection is in: T 199

Records relating to sites and buildings covered by this collection are found throughout:

LRRO

WORK

MPH

CRES

Public Record(s)

English

360 flat sheet(s)

Open

From 2006 Treasury

This collection was accumulated by Robert J Lister (1856-1946), Librarian to the Board of Trade, 1896-1919. Lister was a collector of books and prints, and in particular anything which pertained to the architectural history of Whitehall. After his death, his legal representatives donated this part of his collection to the Treasury Library.

No further accruals are anticipated.

Acquisition policy criteria 2.2.2.2. As a source of the history of the buildings in Whitehall, the collection is of value because so many of the sites and buildings covered are represented in The National Archives record holdings.

Records within this series were gathered by R J Lister, former Librarian to the Board of Trade, and were bequeathed to the Treasury in 1946.

The Treasury Librarian was involved in the selection of the contents of what was to become known as 'The Lister Collection'. Selection was made from the vast collection of prints, cuttings and notes left by this industrious and informed collector of Whitehall history on his death.

By accepting this collection, the Treasury had acknowledged the need to make it available to students and had agreed to arrange and catalogue its contents. This was done with assistance from the London Museum, and in November 1948, the Library Committee of HM Treasury organised a public exhibition of 81 items from the collection, held in the Board Room of the Old Treasury (Kent's building). Exhibits were exclusively from the Lister Collection, but included only those items selected by the Prints and Engravings Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) as being of particular interest.

The exhibition was designed to publicise the importance of the collection. An exhibition handbook 'Whitehall through the Centuries' included descriptions and notes compiled from information supplied by the London Museum.

In September 1998, HM Treasury organised a second exhibition to mark 'Open House' (when the Treasury was open to the public over the weekend of 19-20 September). 1998 was the 300th anniversary of the fire which destroyed the Palace of Whitehall (1698), and coincidentally 50 years after the previous (and first) exhibition of items from the Lister Collection (1948).

Billed as 'principally from the Lister Collection', the 1998 exhibition was designed to show the history of the relocation of the Treasury up and down Whitehall. The 69 items from Lister's Collection were put alongside loan items from the Government Art Collection, Sir John Soanes Museum, the Imperial War Museum and private collections. The exhibition handbook 'HM Treasury in Whitehall' was written by Susan Foreman, the exhibition curator.

Whilst in the care of HM Treasury and Cabinet Office Library, some of the prints and engravings have been cited and reproduced in a number of modern publications; some have been included in the Treasury Picture Loan Club; and some have been on longer-term loan to other government organisations.

This collection was transferred to The National Archives in 2006