The papers of the distinguished public servant Lady Plowden (1910-2000) were generously gifted to Newcastle University Library in 2003 by the Plowden family.

Held in Special Collections, Lady Plowden's papers are an extensive and rich resource reflecting her many areas of concern. Lady Plowden held a number of high-profile public roles in the spheres of education reform and television broadcasting, most notably as Chairman of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England), 1963 – 1967, Vice-Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, 1970 – 1975, and Chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), 1975 – 1980. A large and varied number of public roles followed, many of which retained this focus on primary and pre-school education reform as well as the promotion of high-quality television broadcasting. Lady Plowden's interests were wide however and these papers also reflect Lady Plowden's roles within organisations related to Romany and Traveller education and rights, adult education, the care and resettlement of offenders, the role of voluntary work, young adult unemployment and training, and women and employment.

Lady Plowden (nee Richmond) was a niece of Gertrude Bell and a cousin of the Trevelyans of Wallington. An additional deposit of material made by the Plowden family comprise of a number of family photograph albums and correspondence files relating to the Richmond, Bell and Trevelyan families.

This archive includes content accumulated and created by both Charles and Mary, and other family members. It reflects the family's personal activities from Charles' childhood in the 1870s to Mary's death in 1966, but also includes some content from Charles' professional life. It can support research into a broad variety of areas, including political history (particularly the Liberal and Labour parties, socialism and international relations), World War I (particularly dissent and the peace movement), childhood and education (from both a personal and political perspective), domesticity, class and landed estates.
This extensive personal archive is mostly comprised of correspondence. This includes: Correspondence to Charles in his role as MP Correspondence to and from Charles relating to the operation of the Union of Democratic Control Correspondence to and from Charles relating to his positions in government Correspondence relating to the management of the Wallington estate and the donation to the National Trust Correspondence between members of the Trevelyan and Bell families, much of which is domestic in tone Correspondence to and from Charles and Mary's children from their early childhood to adulthood Correspondence from visits abroad including North America, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, Russia and Germany The correspondents include family members such as Charles' brothers George Macaulay Trevelyan and Robert Calverley Trevelyan, Mary's sister and brother in law Elsa Richmond and Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond. Other correspondents include Sir Winston Churchill, J Ramsay MacDonald, E D Morel, Arthur Ponsonby, Walter Runciman, Herbert Samuel, George Bernard Shaw and Jennie Lee.

Other documents include: Papers relating to Charles, Mary and their childrens' educations, including exam papers and school ephemera Personal Diaries, in particular a short run of Mary's personal diaries as a young woman Official political papers, including Cabinet Conclusions, draft bills[?] and copies of Hansard Pamphlets and leaflets written by and collected by Charles, many relating to socialism and the UDC Transcripts of speeches given by Charles and Mary in professional and personal capacities Personal notebooks with draft speeches and essays Family photograph albums and glass negatives, recording family events, daily life, and Charles' political career Press cuttings and scrapbooks relating to family events and Charles' career

The archive mainly comprises correspondence relating to Charles' activities as a Civil Servant and administrator. There are also publications relating to these activities and Charles' wider interests.

There is also personal content, including travel diaries, family correspondence and papers regarding inheritance of the Wallington estate in Northumberland.

The archive comprises some printed work by Thomas Hodgkin, letters to and from fellow physicians and a box of notes on medical cases, observations, sketches and various fragments.

Thomas Hodgkin (b.1798 - d.1866) was a British physician, considered one of the most prominent pathologists of his time and a pioneer in preventive medicine. He is now best known for the first account of Hodgkin's disease, a form of lymphoma and blood disease, in 1832. Hodgkin's work marked the beginning of the development of the role of the pathologist in being actively involved in the clinical process.

Papers primarily relate to Wilcox's time in Germany and Russian and mainly consist of typescripts (some annotated/edited) and offprints of articles published in contemporary journals. These include, for example, versions of a series of articles on Kerensky and Korniloff from the Fortnightly Review (September 1918-January 1919) and the subject's response. There is also a large collection of foreign-language articles and pamphlets (some by Wilcox), including B.V. Savinkov's Za rodinu i svobodu (Warsaw, 1920). Also included is a series of typed primary sources (speeches/statements), primarily relating to the Kerensku-Korniloff affair. There is some correspondence, most significantly a series of letters from Edmund Clerihew Bentley written from the Daily News and, later, the Daily Telegraph (1908-1923). Bentley was a journalist, author of Trent's Last Case, and inventor of the clerihew poem, and remained in contact with Wilcox for many years, although there are no extant letters later than 1923. Also included are a number of letters from Irene Ward, MP, and a small collection of family correspondence. Papers also include collections relating to Wilcox's personal and family life. These include a large collection of photographs, a small collection of articles and pamphlets in areas of interest and bills and receipts relating to the last years of Wilcox's life in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Consists mainly of letters to Robert Spence Watson. Topics include, but are not limited to, British politics and the Liberal party, contemporary Europe, Armstrong College (later Newcastle University), the Peace Society, lectures at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, and contemporary literary and scientific achievements. Other regular recipients of letters include Elizabeth Spence Watson, Frederick Weiss, and Charles Prestwich Scott.

The Spence Watson's wide-ranging public activism, make their correspondence a valuable source of opinions on the social and political matters of the day from a wide range of prominent persons.

This is a collection of chiefly historical medical texts, numbering about 450 volumes, along with some archival material which was formerly owned by the neurologist and medical historian, Edwin Clarke (1919-1996). The collection usefully complements the Pybus and the Medical Collections.

Highlights include An inquiry concerning the history of the cowpox: principally with a view to supersede and extinguish the smallpox (1798) by George Pearson, the well-known physician, chemist and early advocate of Jenner's cowpox vaccination; and the Report from the Committee appointed to examine the physicians who have attended His Majesty, during his illness: touching the present state of His Majesty's health (1789), issued by Parliament during the period of King George III's recurrent mental illness. The collection also contains some modern secondary texts on various aspects of the history of medicine.

The Nicholson Collection comprises periodicals (newspapers, magazines and magazine supplements) and a small number of letters, postcards, pamphlets and photographs, relating to Spain, Ethiopia, Britain, and Italy. These are political and religious publications, for the most part, but include national and local newspapers, roughly covering the period of the late 1930s to the mid 1960s. Also included are The Workers Chronicle from May 1926 (covering the General Strike) and two U.S. Information Service documents from 1946.

This collection represents the historical portion of the Library of Appleby Grammar School in Cumbria (formerly in the old county of Westmorland) and has been deposited on indefinite loan. The nucleus of the collection was the personal library of an early headmaster of the school, Reginald Bainbrigg [1545-1612?].Books in this collection range in publication date from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. The collection can be searched on the library's catalogue and there is also a printed catalogue by the late Edgar Hinchcliffe, formerly a master at the school, available from the Special Collections reading room.The collection contains predominantly classical, theological, literary and historical works, as well as a number of early sixteenth-century English bindings. There are many sixteenth-century editions of works by classical authors, such as Cicero, while other highlights include several works by the English philosopher and enlightenment thinker John Locke and a 1561 Basel imprint of Martin Luther's Quaestionum Sacrarum.