The Wilson Catalogue is now online!

After a four year project, the Papers of Jeremy Wilson, T.E. Lawrence’s authorised biographer, are now open and can be searched via our online catalogue. You can go straight to the catalogue via the following link: https://archive-cat.magd.ox.ac.uk/records/P450

In this blog post, I’ll give a brief overview of how to navigate the catalogue and how to find specific material or information on a particular subject or person among the more than 23,500 items the Wilson collection contains.

Important note: The catalogue allows you to search for and order specific items from Wilson’s archive. You can either request the item to be digitised and sent to you via email or book an in-person appointment at our Holywell Ford search room, especially if you want to see a large amount of material. The online catalogue does not contain images of items, although we will always be happy to supply them upon request (email us at archives@magd.ox.ac.uk or complete this online form).

At First Glance

You can find the Wilson catalogue either by clicking on the link above or by going to our online catalogue and entering “Jeremy Wilson” or the catalogue reference number: P450.

On selecting this, you will find a page of general information on the collection (see below). Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find a table of contents, known as a “tree”. You can select different elements of the tree to go into greater detail down to item level by clicking on the + symbol next to each entry on the left.

The first layer of the tree shows different areas of Wilson’s life and work. This includes Wilson’s perhaps surprising sideline as the historian of Eurotunnel! However, the bulk of the collection can be found under P450/R: T.E. Lawrence Research.

Alternatively, if you want simply to search the collection by keyword, you can enter search terms within the “Search within this collection” box on the right hand side of the page (or at the bottom of it, if using a mobile device).

Collection Contents

Within this main section on T.E. Lawrence Research, there are several sub-sections covering different types of material.

Letter from J.B Priestley to Lilith Friedman, 28 February 1969. Jeremy Wilson Archive, P450/R/COR/3/9/1

The Correspondence section contains letters, faxes and printed emails between Jeremy Wilson and hundreds of different recipients, including friends of T.E. Lawrence and other prominent historians and collectors. These can be found in P450/R/COR/1, whilst P450/R/COR/2 contains details about Wilson’s emails, which we are storing in digital form.

However, a great deal of interesting and early correspondence with Lawrence’s contemporaries can be found in P450/R/COR/3-11, including the letters of researchers Lilith Friedman in P450/R/COR/3 and Arabella Rivington in P450/R/COR/5. For the long correspondence between T.E.’s younger brother Arnold Walter Lawrence and Jeremy Wilson, as well as associated papers, look in P450/R/COR/4.

Keep clicking on sections to get down to item level, and see individual letters between different people.

To find out more about an item click on “Details”. Some items might have additional information here, especially in the “Scope and Content” field.

The Facsimiles sub-section contains hundreds of reproductions of items relating to T.E. Lawrence collected by Wilson from a large number of sources. The collection brings together this extraordinary archive of Lawrence’s writing in a single searchable archive.

In this section you can find facsimiles of: photographs and artworks of T.E. Lawrence in chronological order (P450/R/FAC/1); manuscripts by and to T.E. Lawrence organised alphabetically by subject, then alphabetically by person including various early drafts of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and letters not previously available to the public (P450/R/FAC/2); official documents relating to the Arab Revolt, and Lawrence’s career in the Army, Colonial Office and the R.A.F. (P450/R/FAC/3); and copies of books by T.E. Lawrence including bibliographical information on many different editions (P450/R/FAC/4)

“Every airman has his day – at Karachi”. Photograph of Georges Pelletier D’Oisy and his aeroplane from album of an anonymous R.A.F. servicemen in Karachi, 1924. P450/R/IAV/1/2/7/7

The Images, Audio and Video section (IAV) contains Wilson’s media collection.

P450/R/IAV/1 includes original and collected artworks and photographs relating to T.E. Lawrence ordered by subject, including pictures of Clouds Hill, images relating to the R.A.F. and film stills from “Lawrence of Arabia”. P450/R/IAV/2 and P450/R/IAV/3 list a large number of audio and video recordings relating to T.E. Lawrence dating from the 1950s to the present day including some rare recordings, such as previously unpublished interviews with friends of Lawrence.

Click on the red spots below for more information.

“T.E. Lawrence 1888-1935”, title page by David Lytton, 1962. Magdalen College Archives, Papers of Jeremy Wilson P450/R/ORR/2/2/8.

Works by other writers, researchers and reviews can be found in P450/R/ORR. There are several typescripts of first-hand memoirs of Lawrence including those by Herbert Hodgson and R.G. Sims (P450/R/ORR/2/1).  Wilson collected a fantastic range of scripts for documentaries and creative works about T.E. Lawrence, many of which are unpublished elsewhere, these can be found in P450/R/ORR/2/2. You can find copies of scripts for three versions of the film “Lawrence of Arabia”, the BBC documentary “T.E. Lawrence: 1888-1935”, scripts for international documentaries on Lawrence as well as various unmade scripts for new Lawrence dramas.

“The Fiction and the Fact” by A.W. Lawrence, The Observer, 16 Dec 1962, from a “Film Scrapbook” by an unknown person. P450/R/ORR/6/3/6

P450/R/ORR/2/3 is where you can find over 200 draft works by other writers, many annotated with Jeremy Wilson’s comments. P450/R/ORR/3 includes facsimiles of extracts from hundreds of works referencing Lawrence in date order, showing the progress of critical and popular thought on Lawrence throughout the twentieth century. Original journals can be found in P450/R/ORR/4, and reviews of works by Jeremy Wilson in found in P450/R/ORR/5. One of the jewels of the collection is Wilson’s newspaper archive which contains over a thousand newspaper clippings dating from the 1900s to the 2010s, which can be browsed item by item (P450/R/ORR/6/1-2). Newspaper clippings albums compiled by Lawrence researchers can be found in P450/R/ORR/6/3.

Poster for Minorities by M. Mohan for Jonathan Cape. P450/R/PUB/1/32

Material relating to Wilson’s Publications can be browsed in chronological order in P450/R/PUB. This section includes a large amount of papers relating to “Minorities”, Wilson’s first ever publication on Lawrence, which includes drafts by Wilson and a foreword by Cecil Day-Lewis (P450/R/PUB/1). The progress of Wilson’s monumental biography of Lawrence can be followed in P450/R/PUB/5 from early chapter plans to publication.

This section also contains a large amount of unpublished works by Wilson including papers relating to Lawrence’s ancestry and the Chapman family in Ireland (P450/R/PUB/22/1), and documents written on the controversial testimony of John Bruce made in the 1960s, on claims he administered beatings to Lawrence (P450/R/PUB/22/2).

Meanwhile, material on Wilson’s lectures and contributions to events, exhibitions and television programmes, can be found in P450/R/LEE.

Selection of Hejaz stamps. Magdalen College Archives. Papers of Jeremy Wilson. P450/R/REM/1/2

Some of the most valuable material in the collection can be found in Research Material (P450/R/REM). This is where you can find a small range of original material collected by Wilson including original maps and a full set of Hejaz stamps (P450/R/REM/1).

Wilson spent years meticulously amassing and condensing research about every detail of T.E. Lawrence’s life, and the results of this can be found in his recreated “diaries” for every year of Lawrence’s life (P450/R/REM/2) and a set of 100 biographical files containing transcriptions of documents arranged in chronological order allowing the researcher to track Lawrence’s life day by day (P450/R/REM/3). These files contain many letters which cannot be found in the manuscripts section so should be the first port of call for a letter search.

The Research Material also contains indexes (P450/R/REM/4) and a collection of T.E. Lawrence ephemera (P450/R/REM/5).

This section is where you can also find bibliographic works by Jeremy Wilson (P450/R/REM/6/1). Wilson began his research on Lawrence working on a bibliography in the late 1960s and continued to work on various versions throughout his career. The bibliography was never published as a physical book, but was later published in digital form on T.E. Lawrence Studies website. The collection contains over one hundred versions of the bibliography and other catalogues of Wilson’s own books and manuscripts.

Ephemera: Signed Programme for ‘Too True to Be Good’, 1965. Magdalen College Archives, Papers of Jeremy Wilson, P450/R/REM/5/5

Catalogues from auctions, collectors, booksellers and institutions relating to Lawrence can be found in chronological order in P450/R/REM/6/2. This series of over 300 individual items documents the location and sale of valuable manuscripts, books and objects relating to Lawrence over a 90 year period.

The Wilson collection contains within it a number of interesting collections by other researchers that were acquired by Jeremy Wilson over his lifetime, and these can be found in P450/R/REM/8-13. Here you can find the transcriptions of interviews made by Arabella Rivington from her interviews with Fareedah el Akle, Compton Mackenzie and others (P450/R/REM/8/4). You can also follow L.S. Morris on early forays to sneak a look at Clouds Hill before it was opened by the National Trust (P450/R/REM/13).

Material relating to the T.E. Lawrence Society can be found in P450/R/SOC, and information on the Wilson’s T.E. Lawrence Studies website on P450/R/TES.

A Hybrid Catalogue

The Papers of Jeremy Wilson contains both analogue and digital material listed side by side. This allows the researcher to view records from the paper collection as well as digitised material (material transferred from analogue media such as VHS) and born-digital material (material originally produced using a computer). If the item you want to see is labelled as a “digital file” then we may be able to retrieve a copy from our digital storage and send it to you via email. You can therefore experience the same access to this as you would a scan of a physical item!

Searching for People

You can search for specific creators of records in the Wilson archive. To do this, select the “Search” option on the toolbar on the catalogue home page and enter the name of the person you are interested in. The results should come up with the tab open at “Archive Records”.

Click on the “Name” tab which is third under search results. Here you can select the person you are looking for. From this record you can select the phrase “There are – records linked to this name” and then find a list of relevant items. See below!

Searching for a Subject

Material on a particular subject may found across the collection or in specific files. To search only in the Jeremy Wilson archive, use either the “Search within this collection” function within the catalogue itself, or select “Search Within” under the “Search” tab. You can then enter “P450” to search only within the Wilson collection. Then enter the subject that particularly interests you e.g. “Clouds Hill”, and results featuring this phrase will appear.

Please let us know if you would like to view any of the material from the Wilson catalogue by emailing archives@magd.ox.ac.uk, or if you have any further questions!

Please note some material is closed conditionally or for certain periods, especially that relating to living people whose personal data is protected. Information on access status can be found in the catalogue and requests for material will first be considered by the archivists.

Thank you very much for following the progress of the Wilson catalogue and our Lawrence collections at Magdalen College Archives over the last few years!