Comprises correspondence and papers of Mary Hope Allen, as well as correspondence of her grandfather Robin Allen (1820-98), Secretary of Trinity House and a poet and critic, and of her father, Sir Ernest King Allen (1864-1937), Assistant Public Trustee 1915-23. Robin Allen's correspondents include 19th century politicians, artists, poets and critics such as W.E. Gladstone, Thomas Hardy, Lord Leighton, John Ruskin, Lord Tennyson, Arnold Toynbee and Mrs. Humphry Ward. There is a collection of 19th and early 20th century autographs possibly formed by Robin Allen and continued by Sir Ernest King Allen, which includes a letter of John Singer Sargent. A further group of 19th and early 20th century letters was given to Mary Hope Allen by Edward Foord in 1925, and includes letters from Sir Edwin Landseer, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Carlyle and H.G. Wells.



Mary Hope Allen's autograph book (MS Add.9225/4) seems to have been compiled mostlyfrom letters to her father, Sir Ernest King Allen, and contains many letters from lawyers to whom Allen presented his book 'The law of corporate trusts' (1906). Mary Hope Allen's correspondence reflects her work in radio drama and contacts with actors and writers, including Jill Balcon (wife of Cecil Day-Lewis), Fay Compton, Walter de la Mare, Herbert and Joan Farjeon, Sir John Gielgud, Hermione Hannen, Carleton Hobbs, Lydia Lopokova (Lady Keynes), Ernest Milton, Naomi Royde Smith, and Gladys Young.



Together with articles, reviews, correspondence, and poems for The Weekly Westminster, c.1922-24; and photographs of actors and dramatists.