For Intellectual Liberty: Correspondence and papers
Scope and Contents
Comprises: minutes of meetings of the F.I.L. committee, 1935-1940; scrpabook of press cuttings, chiefly letters written by F.I.L. members to the press on a range of subjects in the lead-up to the Second World War; printed publications and statements; papers of the British Section of the International Association of Writers for the Defence of Culture, 1938-40, including letters of Hugh Walpole, Compton Mackenzie and Sylvia Townsend Warner; papers relating to refugees; publications; index of members compiled by the Honorary Secretary, Margaret Gardiner, and other papers and correspondence generated by Gardiner in her secretarial duties.
Dates
- Creation: 1936-1940
Creator
- For Intellectual Liberty. F.I.L. (1935-1940) (Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Biographical / Historical
The association `For Intellectual Liberty' was formed in February 1936 following a conference in Paris called by the `Comité de Vigilance des Intellectuels Antifascistes'. According to its first bulletin, F.I.L. claimed to be "a rallying point for those intellectual workers who felt that the condition of the world called for the active defence of peace, liberty, and culture" (Bulletin no.1). Members held meetings, wrote to the press, and lobbied their MPs on such subjects as anti-Semitism, the League of Nations, and the Spanish Civil War. In the late 1930s they were also involved in schemes of practical assistance for refugees. The Association seems to have lapsed in the late summer of 1940.
Extent
3 archive box(es) (3 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The majority of the papers (section A) were presented to the Library in May 1996 by the former Honorary Secretary of FIL, Margaret Gardiner. Her card-index of members (A11) had been given to the Library in 1993. At her request, a further three files were extracted from the papers of J.D. Bernal (Add. 8287) and added to the collection as section B.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Cambridge University Library Repository
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