Scope and Contents Eleanor Brett, Viscountess Esher kept a typescript entry for most days during the First World War, ranging in length from a single line to a paragraph, sometimes reproducing extracts from letters, telegrams, and newspaper articles. She appears to have written her diary retrospectively. Throughout her diary, she interspersed short anecdotes from soldiers about their military experiences and character profiles of politicians, diplomats, journalists, nurses, artists, and other individuals she...

Scope and Contents

Includes original articles, diaries, photographs and other papers, plus copies of originals held by the family of Sir Lionel Whitby. Also includes other items such as his undergraduate gown, medals and awards, copies of published books and secondary material donated by his family.

Scope and Contents This scrapbook documents how Eleanor spent the first year of the First World War. It begins as Eleanor recounts hearing about the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, from Prince Louis of Battenberg who sat at the next table to her and her family at the Savoy on 28 June 1914. During 1914, Eleanor re-commenced the running of First Aid classes for women, which she ran from the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, London, with St John’s Ambulance. In September 1914, her scrapbook...