North Manuscripts

Muniments of the Waldershare estate of the Furnese and North families

The sections devoted to CORRESPONDENCE and ACCOUNTS are the largest in this catalogue and contain most of interest. The bulk of the former concerns Frederick, 5th Earl of Guilford, in his capacities successively as Secretary of State in Corsica in 1796 [015], Governor of Ceylon, 1798-1805 [C27-61] and promoter of the University of the Ionian Isles [C63-104]. With the first should be associated the letter from Nelson [C128], while the 2nd group contains not only letters received by the Governor and drafts or copies of his reports, but also correspondence from him and others in Ceylon to his brother-in-law Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glonbervie, who watched over his interests in England during his absence.

With the large series of ACCOUNTS some attempt has been made at a division into sections covering (i) the whole estate, (ii) Waldershare Park, gardens and home farm and (iii) household and personal accounts [A1-67]. The series of vouchers follows [A68-118]; wherever possible these have been related to an accountant and referred back to the relevant volume. There is almost a complete gap in the accounts between c.1825 and c.1870 (Roughly the life spar of the 6th Earl) and the later Waldershare accounts are listed as A120-193.

A206-260 are accounts of the North family of Glemham (co. Suffolk), 1672-1755; these include not only estate and household accounts but also business and trust accounts of Sir Dudley North, Turkey merchant, and his successors. Sir Dudley was a younger son of the 3rd Lord Guilford and it was not until about 1866 that the Glemham estate passed to the Earl of Guilford, as representing the senior branch of the family, on the death of Dudley Long North without issue subject to his widow's life interest.

Among the OFFICIAL papers are some relating to the Waldershare Volunteer Infantry, 1804-10, of which the 4th Earl was Lieutenant-Colonel and a small bundle of Lord North's political papers, 1782-1788.

More North MSS can be found at the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Deposited by The Right Hon. the Earl of Guilford per C.Harman Hunt esq., Waldershare park, Dover, December 1954

Accession Information:

Main Accession:

M1-M16; T1-T143; F1-F8; C1-C141; E1-E47; A1-A266; L1-L5; O1-O20; Z1-Z10; P1-P7

Accession 632:

F9; O21

Accession 1981:

F10-F12; C142-C146; E48-50; O22-O28; Q3-Q5; A267-A273

Accession A2163:

A274

These records were transferred to the East Kent Archives Centre, Whitfield from the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone in May 2000

The Waldershare estate was bought in 1705 by Sir Henry Furnese [T3]. As a result of the failure of the male line with the death of his grandson, Sir Henry, in 1735, the estate passed in the female line to the latter's sister, Katherine, who married successively her cousin Lewis, Earl of Rockingham in 1736 [T128] and Francis, 1st Earl of Guilford in 1751 [T4]. She died without issue in 1767 having devised her estate to her 2nd husband in whose family it has remained.

The muniments here preserved are mainly for the 18th and 19th centuries and reflect these changes of ownership.