Add MS 88906/12/5

Personal papers of the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne. Contents include:

1. Commission as Captain in the Wiltshire Yeomanry Cavalry; 1865.

2. Letter to Lady Louisa Howard from Emily Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marchioness of Lansdowne, on the feelings of ‘Clan’ (Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Viscount Clanmaurice, later 5th Marquess of Lansdowne) on having missed first-class honours at Oxford; 1867.

3. Letter from Lord Lansdowne to his wife, 24 November 1883, to be opened in the event of his assassination by Fenian agitators in Canada. With an envelope annotated by Lansdowne in 1907 (‘Out of date, but I do not like to destroy it’) and again in 1911 (‘The 28 years which have past since the letter was written leave my feelings unchanged’).

4. Envelope containing three Canadian two-dollar notes depicting Lord Lansdowne and his wife; 1887.

5. Invitation to a tent-pegging competition between Lord Roberts (Commander-in-Chief, India) and Lord Lansdowne (Viceroy of India) and members of their respective staffs; 1892.

6. Card signed by King Edward VII, enclosed with a Christmas present; 1907.

7. Letter from Raymond Asquith asking Lansdowne’s permission for ‘a cinematograph film to be taken in 10 Downing Street of the assembling of the Cabinet’, the film to be deposited in the British Museum ‘as a record of considerable historic interest’; 1916.

8. Autobiographical notes by Lord Lansdowne, circa 1917.

9. Permit to Lord Lansdowne to travel to Ireland; 1918. With a photograph.

10. Order of service at Lord Lansdowne’s funeral, 8 June 1927.

11. Letter to Lady Lansdowne from Margot Asquith, praising Lord Lansdowne as ‘the most courteous and most gentle of great gentlemen’ and stressing his loyalty to Asquith and disapproval of Lloyd George; 22 July 1929.

12. Folder of poems written or copied by Lord Lansdowne; n.d. Latin and English.