Add MS 83198-83258

Papers of Grace Higgens (b.1903, d.1983), maid, cook and housekeeper to Clive and Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant; circa 1900-2001, n.d. Partly French. Born Grace Germany in Banham, Norfolk, Grace began her employment with the Bells in June 1920 and was initially responsible for looking after Angelica Bell, the daughter of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. She moved with the family between Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, and Charleston, Sussex, and accompanied them on their holidays to France. Following her marriage in 1934 to Walter Higgens, and the birth of her son, John, a year later, Grace became housekeeper and cook, and lived permanently at Charleston. After the death of Vanessa Bell in 1961 and Clive Bell in 1964, Grace stayed on as housekeeper to Duncan Grant. In 1971 Grace retired and moved to Ringmer, four miles from Charleston, but kept in contact with Grant and the younger Bells. Grace's archive contains frequent mention of many members of the Bloomsbury group, in particular in her diaries. She was painted by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and is depicted in Interior with Housemaid (1938) and Grace in the Kitchen at Charleston (1943).

For two video cassettes entitled, 'Charleston and Moving to Ringmer' [1970] and 'Duncan Grant, Charleston' [late 1960s?], acquired as part of the archive, and for the Super Eight reel from which footage on the latter video was transferred, see C1284 in the Sound Archive. For references to Grace in the 'Charleston Bulletin', a mock newspaper produced by Julian and Quentin Bell, see Add. 83316-83332. For manuscripts held at The British Library relating to Duncan Grant and Clive Bell, see, Add. 57930-57933, 58120, 60802, 74230. For recorded interviews concerning the residents of Charleston, see Sound Archive C466/212/01-09; F13202-F13214; F12465-F12468 ETC. For recordings by the Charleston Trust relating to Duncan Grant, see Sound Archive CC1180. Biographical information on Grace Higgens can be found in Alison Light, Mrs Woolf and the Servants: The Hidden Heart of Domestic Service (London, 2007) and Alan and Veronica Palmer, Who's Who in Bloomsbury (Brighton, 1987).

The papers were purchased from John Higgens, son of Grace Higgens, through Quaritch in 2006. The cataloguing was supported by a generous donation from Alastair Kirkpatrick in memory of his aunt, Brownlee Jean Kirkpatrick M.B.E., Librarian of the Royal Anthropological Institute and bibliographer.

Mostly paper; manuscript, typescript and printed. Sixty-one volumes. British Library arrangement. Throughout the descriptions individuals have been referred to by their latest or married name rather than maiden name. Classified as follows:

A. Correspondence: 83198-83199

B. Postcards: 83200

C. Diaries: 83201-83245

D. Photographs: 83246

E. Recipe books, scrapbooks and articles relating to Charleston: 83247-83253

F. Miscellaneous: 83254-83258