EARLS OF ONSLOW OF CLANDON PARK, WEST CLANDON: ADDITIONAL RECORDS

Perhaps the most significant addition to the archive listed here is the accumulation of Surrey estate maps (5337/2/-), including of Woking Park, 1709, and the Guildford Park Estate, 1759.

Aside from other material relating to the family estate, the records add to our picture of the careers of the 4th Earl William Hillier Onslow (henceforth WHO) and the 5th Earl Richard William Alan, known as 'Cranley' Onslow (henceforth RCO).

For clarity the records are divided into 'personal' and 'public life' groupings, although as these are the archives of individuals rather than organisations, there is an unavoidable blurring of such distinctions at document level.

The earlier deposit of family papers, G173, includes so-called 'private papers' bound chronologically into volumes, probably prepared on behalf of the 5th Earl. These in fact comprise records of a great diversity of activity in various government and parliamentary positions, as landowners, and as individuals.

It is certainly the case that records listed here can be both of private and what are here called 'public' functions. The Onslows' governmental careers cannot be separated from their position as parliamentarians in the House of Lords; colleagues were very often personal or family friends, whose correspondence touches on a range of subjects accordingly.

The arrangement of the material in the list has had to be imposed during cataloguing; the records were found in considerable disarray at Clandon Park, with such diverse items of wide-ranging dates juxtaposed that there was no indication that a filing system had been used nor any clue as to why these records had been separated from closely related records (the earlier deposit G173/- was in part contained in the box files which had been employed by the 5th Earl). The material described here thus represents the Onslow archive often very fragmentarily, due to the more substantial earlier deposits by the family. Cross-referencing to these is given throughout the list, and it should be borne in mind that the main body of a record group may be listed elsewhere.

The item numbers assigned to documents are temporary.

5337/1/ FAMILY SETTLEMENTS, WILLS ETC, 1741-1941

5337/2/ RECORDS OF THE ONSLOW ESTATES, 1709-1943

Estate maps, c.1709-20thc

Estate management: financial, 1871-1943

Estate management: employment, 1907-1909

Estate management: property, 1826-1929

Estate management: home farms and parks, 1791-1924

Household, 1901-1943

5337/3/ 4TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PUBLIC LIFE: GOVERNMENTAL AND PARLIAMENTARY OFFICES, 1888-1906

Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, c1888

Governor of New Zealand, 1888-1893

Colonial Under-Secretary, 1902-1904

Board of Agriculture, including Cabinet work, 1903-1907

Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and Speaker of the House of Lords, 1906-1911

5337/4/ 4TH EARL OF ONSLOW: POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS, 1898-c1903

5337/5/ 4TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PUBLIC LIFE: LOCAL BODIES AND VOLUNTARY SOCIETIES, 1886-1910

5337/6/ 4TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE AND PAPERS, 1861-1903

5337/7/ 5TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PUBLIC LIFE: DIPLOMATIC, GOVERNMENTAL AND PARLIAMENTARY OFFICES, 1906-1934

Diplomatic secretary to British Embassy, 1904-1908

Foreign Office, c1909-1914

Intelligence and Propaganda, 1916-1918

Lordship in Waiting, 1919-1920

Civil Lord of the Admiralty, 1920-1924

Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, including work as Civil Commissioner, 1921-1929

Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Health

Chairmanship of the Royal Commission on Local Government, 1923-1929

Chairmanship of the Voluntary Hospitals Commission, 1921-1929

Parliamentary Secretary, Board of Education, 1923-c1939

Under-Secretary of State for War, 1924-1927

Privy Councillor, 1926

Member of the House of Lords, c1921-1931

Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords, 1931-1943

5337/8/ 5TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PUBLIC LIFE: POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS

5337/9/ 5TH EARL OF ONSLOW, PUBLIC LIFE: VOLUNTARY SOCIETIES AND LOCAL BODIES, 1915-1943

Voluntary war work, including Clandon Hospital and the Order of St John's, 1915-1943

Local bodies, 1922-1931

Zoological Societies, 1923-1943

Chairmanship of the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University of London, 1931

5337/10/ 5TH EARL OF ONSLOW AND VIOLET LADY ONSLOW: PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE, WRITINGS AND PAPERS, 1883-1943

5337/11/ 5TH EARL OF ONSLOW: HISTORY OF THE ONSLOW FAMILY: DRAFTS OF THE TEXT, CORRESPONDENCE, AND COLLECTED RECORDS, 17THC-1924

<p>For background information on the estates, records and family of the Onslows, see introductions to G173/- and 1320/-.</p>

No document may be consulted for legal purposes without the permission of Lord Onslow.

Deposited by Lord Onslow, and by the National Trust on behalf of Lord Onslow, between October 1995 and February 1996.

A copy of the autobiography of the 5th Earl of Onslow up to 1939, Sixty Three Years, is held in the library. The introduction to -/7/- is largely derived from this.