This is a transcription of the paper catalogue prepared by Michael Thompson in 1976 of the papers relating to Pitt-Rivers held by Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum [S&SWM]. This contains information useful for researchers. Please note that if you wish to consult the papers in this collection you will need to contact S&SWM direct.

THE ROYAL COMMISSION OF HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS

Catalogue of the correspondence and papers of AUGUSTUS HENRY ALEN FOX PITT-RIVERS (1827-1900) Lieutenant-General, anthropologist and archaeologist 1855-1899 in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, Wiltshire ... Listed by Dr. M.W. Thompson 1976

Letters received between 1881 and 1899 [p. 78-80]

After the transfer of business letters to the last sections [... etc] there remained some 2.580 letters received by Pitt-Rivers in the period 1881-99 from about 900 correspondents. The letters are distributed over the period as follows:

It is inconceivable that Pitt-Rivers only received 4 letters in 1881 or 15 in 1893 and the survival must be regarded as largely fortuitous. Letters received in London were possibly not kept and there is a noticeably better survival in winter months. The fact that three-fifths of the letters fall into the period 1894-99 probably merely means that a methodical clerk, H. St George Gray, was then responsible for looking after them.

It must be emphasized that normally we just possess the letter received and only in exceptional cases is there a copy of the reply, either written or dictated by Pitt-Rivers. From about 1889 or 1890 a typewriter was in use at Rushmore but it was a cumbersome instrument only used for making carbons of long reports and special letters. ... The letters which are arranged in chronological order do not divide easily into categories, but a few broad divisions may be made. There are letters from all six sons of Pitt-Rivers, including the youngest Arthur, who died of tuberculosis in the period under consideration. The other sons mainly had career and financial problems which are not of great interest to the modern reader.

A substantial number of the letters are from clergymen usually in livings not far from Rushmore ... Some of the writers are very long-winded whilst others more obviously distinguished scholars whose views Pitt-Rivers respected. These letters provide a most interesting social background to the period.

A good many of the letters are from professional colleagues, some of whom Pitt-Rivers had known for many years like Greenwell, Evans, Lubbock ... Franks, Galton, Howorth and so on. ... At a slightly lower social level was Moule, the Curator of the newly founded County Museum at Dorchester ...

The collecting interests of Pitt-Rivers were well known and as might be expected therefore there were many people who wished to sell him things, varying from single objects to whole collections. A good many of such correspondents were professional dealers but others were people in straitened circumstances ...

The Larmer Grounds gave rise to good deal of correspondence ... this section contains many letters applying for permission to visit them ...

The issue of the four volumes of Excavations in Cranborne Chase generated much correspondence ...

John Clavell Mansel-Pleydell (1817-1902) was the writer of the highest total of letters in the collection (155, the writer who follows in numbers of letters is Moule with 49). ...

Transcribed by AP for the Rethinking Pitt-Rivers project July 2011