March 2003 Edition

The Letters of Richard Cobden Project at the London School of Economics aims to publish all remaining letters by British statesman Richard Cobden (1804–65) in a series of volumes from the Oxford University Press. Further information on the project may be found at <www.lse.ac.uk/collections/cobdenletters>.

While we have endeavoured to trace as many letters as we can using standard sources, for the sake of completeness it is necessary to circularise as many archives and libraries as possible in order to trace any letters that may be lurking in obscure collections. We are convinced that there are more letters in Irish collections as, apart from having some family connections in Tipperary, Cobden was acquainted with a number of high profile Irish Whigs and radicals.

To that end, we would be very grateful if you could search your catalogues for any letters by Richard Cobden that we may have missed.  In particular, we believe that there may be some in contemporary collections of autograph letters, as several such letters have been found using the A2A database and library card-catalogues. I would be very grateful if you could email me at <S.J.Morgan1@lse.ac.uk>, or telephone Tony Howe on +44 (020) 79557103. If we have already contacted your institution with regard to this project, please forgive this further intrusion on your time. However, I am sure you understand our desire to be as thorough as possible.

Dr Simon James Morgan
Research Officer, The Letters of Richard Cobden Project
Department of International History
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
England