| Description | Correspondence to and from Tring Museum, Walter Rothschild and the curators, Ernst Hartert and Karl Jordan. Letters dated before 1908 are incoming only. The material from 1908 onwards also includes file copies of outgoing material. These are typescript and mostly unsigned but occasionally a single letter 'H' or 'J' next to the date indicates the author of the outgoing letter.
The correspondence collection consists of the letters, postcards, invoices etc to and from Lord Rothschild and his two curators, Ernst Hartert and Karl Jordan, relating to the Zoological Museum, Tring. Documents relate to the buildings, their furniture and services, to the acquisition and shipping of specimens for the Museum and books for the library, to the preparation and publication of papers in Novitates Zoologicae and of separate monographs, to scientific research matters, particularly in entomology and ornithology, and to visits from friends, acquaintances and total strangers. Correspondents include naturalists, ornithologists, entomologists, taxidermists, specimen dealers, museum curators, booksellers, publishers, librarians and local people, businesses and societies. Of particular interest are letters from Rothschild's collectors, who operated all over the world, often in unexplored and inhospitable places. Artists and illustrators are also well represented among the writers.
All correspondence is in English unless stated otherwise. Other languages include German, French, Italian and Russian.
Please note that cataloguing of this collection is in progress. Material dated 1880-1902 is currently catalogued under RefNo TM |