Collected file presumed to have been compiled by Marie Belloc Lowndes and / or her daughters. Contains the following:
Photocopy of marriage register entry for Louis Marie Belloc and Elizabeth Parkes [Bessie Rayner Parkes] 1867;
Press cutting entitled ‘In Search of Belloc’s birthplace’ [ie Hilaire Belloc], relating to La Celle St Cloud and touching on Slindon in Sussex where he spent nearly 50 years of his life, 1978;
Postcard of The Pond, Slindon [circa 1910?];
Invitation to the marriage of Marie Adelaide Belloc (daughter of Bessie Belloc, née Parkes) and Frederic Sawrey Archibald Lowndes, January 1896, at Slindon, in French;
Obituary for Josiah Parkes [uncle of Bessie Rayner Parkes], reprinted from Dawlish Newspaper, August 1871;
Letter from Richard Hayes to [Marie] Belloc-Lowndes, 1944, concerning ‘your illustrious soldier ancestor’ [presumably James Swanton];
Article entitled ‘As a Hobby A Private Press’ (published in Illinois - connection unknown);
Draft of Diane Worzala’s entry on Bessie Rayner Parkes for ‘Victorian Britain’, a US encyclopedia;
Photocopy of a letter from Marie [Belloc] to ‘Dearest Hilary’ [Hilaire Belloc], 1888;
Letter to Bessie Rayner Parkes from F S A Lowndes on the death of his mother [circa 1895?];
Typescript extract from Harriet Beecher Stowe, ‘Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands’ in which she describes a dinner at the home of Louise Swanton Belloc [who translated H B S’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ into French]. Date of typescript unknown (reproduction stamped ‘property of Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center’); ‘Sunny Memories - - -’ was published in 1854;
Letter in envelope inscribed ‘letter to Bessie from a nun working in a home for disadvantaged children’ addressed from Richmond 11 November 1862; in it she describes the care and education of a number of orphans;
Three letters to [Josiah] Parkes: one from J Buckle, nd, addressed from Albany, asking ‘how the matter now stands’; one from Charles Wood, 2 November 1854; one from ? Austin, nd, referring to someone by the name of Roebuck, a sum of £1000 and his ‘right to chambers in the Temple’; also copy of a tomb inscription for ‘Joan [Harvey] [d. 1665], Mother of the celebrated Dr Harvey’ - ‘given me [ie given to Josiah Parkes] by Mr J Hodgson Surgeon’ who had copied it at Folkestone, signed J Parkes, 1856;
Letter in envelope inscribed [in the hand of Marie Belloc?] ‘Letter to Louise from the Mother House of our Great Aunt Soeur Ste Julienne [Caroline Swanton,sister of Louise Swanton Belloc's father] after my father’s death’ [ie to Louise Swanton Belloc after the the death of her son, Louis Marie Belloc]; the letter, in French, is addressed ‘Bien chère Madame’, from the Congrégation de Ste Chrétienne, Metz, 8 November 1872, sent to La Celle, signed Sr. St. Augustin, enclosing a holy picture with a cross made from Louis Belloc’s hair and prayers for him.