The Dorothy Thompson Collection at Staffordshire University Special Collections: celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the prominent Chartist historian
In the early 2000s Staffordshire University acquired the extensive personal library of the late Chartist historian, Dorothy Thompson. This October we are delighted to be able to join in the celebrations of what would have been Dorothy’s one hundredth birthday by announcing improved catalogue access to the collection.
Dorothy Thompson was born in London on 30 October 1923, she died on 29 January 2011. She was the daughter of professional musicians. She studied history at Girton College, Cambridge and was passionately politically active all her long life. She married the historian E.P. Thompson and had three children.
In 1970 Dorothy Thompson became a lecturer in the School of History at the University of Birmingham, where she worked until 1988. She was also a visiting scholar at universities in the United States, as well as in Canada, China and Japan. Whilst at Birmingham Dorothy Thompson produced The Early Chartists (1971) an innovative collection of documents relating to Chartist history. Her extensive study of Chartist history meant that her book The Chartists (1984) sought to revise the understanding of Chartism, focusing on its Irish leaders and the contribution of women to the movement.
One of Thompson’s former students, Owen Ashton, became a Professor of History at Staffordshire University and was himself a leading Chartist historian. He was hugely instrumental in securing the donation of Dorothy Thompson’s personal library of books, microfilms and pamphlets for students to use at Staffordshire. We are honoured that her library should thus find a home in our Special Collections.
We are now delighted to announce that, at long last, all the books this personal library have been catalogued so that Chartist historians everywhere can easily access the title list of the collection and see its richness and diversity.
From our main catalogue search box on the library homepage, enter your search term, for example “chartism”, then click on the 3 dots to reveal the “Collection Discovery” option. Click on this and then select “Special Collections”, then choose “Dorothy Thompson Collection” as the sub collection.
To arrange a visit the collection email us academicskills@staffs.ac.uk
What's in the Dorothy Thompson Collection?
This collection contains research on Chartism, the local history of Yorkshire and Lancashire and 19th century social history generally. It includes:
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300 books and pamphlets from c.1800 onwards,
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runs of 33 radical Chartist and other journals from 1831 - 1855,
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5 volumes of early 19th century trials,
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6 volumes of British Parliamentary Papers,
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8 microfilms,
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6 files of Dorothy Thompson's research notes.
Collection details
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Material types: Printed books, pre-1850 printed books, monographs, serials, microforms, ephemera.
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Collection coverage: Yorkshire/Lancashire, national
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Dates: c.1800-
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Languages: English language materials
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Cataloguing status: Printed catalogue
