Letters collected by the Masson family.
Contains records with digital mediaDetails
Type of record: Archive
Title: Letters collected by the Masson family.
Classmark: BC MS Misc. Letters 1 Masson
Creator(s): Masson, David (1822-1907); Masson, [Emily] Rosaline Orme; Masson, David I - University of Leeds (1915-2007)
Date(s): c.1850-1935
Language: English
Size and medium: 5 boxes; manuscript papers, photograph
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8809
Description
The letters collected by the Masson family, primarily by [Elsie] Rosaline Orme Masson (1867-1949), contain correspondence with many eminent artists, writers, and politicians of the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century, together with a series of autographs. Correspondents include Robert Browning, John Buchan, Thomas Carlyle, Sidney Colvin, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, John Masefield, John Stuart Mill, Coventry Patmore, John Ruskin, John Singer Sargent, and Hugh Walpole. Much of the material relates to Rosaline's research for various publications on the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. The correspondence also contains letters to David Masson in his capacity of Professor of English Literature at University College and Edinburgh University, and Florence Nightingale's testimonial to Flora Masson on her leaving St Thomas's Hospital, London.
Also includes a bundle of letters and airgraphs written by David I. Masson (1915-2007) to his friends Tony and Joan Ridge. Masson wrote these in 1943-1944, when he was in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War. In the letters he discusses family news, conditions where he is serving and literature and philosophy. There is also a photograph of Masson taken in December 1942. These are a separate accrual received in 2016.
Biography or history
David Mather Masson (1822-1907), writer and secretary of the "Society of the Friends of Italy", was in 1852 appointed professor of English literature at University College, London, later taking the same position at Edinburgh. From 1858 to 1865 he was editor of the newly established Macmillan's Magazine. In 1879 he became editor of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, and in 1893 was appointed Historiographer Royal for Scotland. His friends included Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. He married [Emily] Rosaline Orme (c.1835-1915), and both were active in the early stages of the women's suffrage movement. One of their daughters, Flora (1856-1937), wrote on the subject of women's enfranchisement in the Ladies' Edinburgh Journal, and the other, Rosaline (1867-1949), became honorary secretary of the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association. Their son, Sir David Orme Masson KBE (1858-1937), emigrated to Australia to become the first Professor of Chemistry at the
University of Melbourne. His grandson, David Irvine Masson (1915-2007), was curator of the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds from 1956, and also a prominent science fiction author. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Second World War.
Access and usage
Access
Access to this material is unrestricted.