A.W. Kinglake: Crimean War correspondence and papers

Alexander William Kinglake (1809-1891) was the second child and eldest son of William Kinglake, banker and solicitor of Taunton, and his wife Mary Woodforde. He was born on 5 August 1809, educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1832; MA, 1836), and was called to the Bar in 1837. In 1844 his book Eothen, a light-hearted account of a journey in the Levant, was published and was an immediate success.

Kinglake's interest in military affairs led him to visit Algeria in 1845 to witness the French campaigns, and to follow the British army to the Crimea in 1854. After Lord Raglan's death in 1856, Lady Raglan asked Kinglake to write a history of the war, and the task occupied him for much of the rest of his life. The first two volumes of The invasion of the Crimea were published in 1863, and the eighth and last volume in 1887.

In 1857 Kinglake was elected Member of Parliament for Bridgewater, in the Liberal interest, and served until 1868, when he was unseated and the borough disfranchised after an enquiry into electoral malpractice.

Kinglake led a comfortable bachelor life in London, and enjoyed the friendship of many of the leading literary and political figures of the day, including William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Tennyson, and Lord John Russell. In particular he was on terms of mutual admiration with a number of literary ladies: Caroline Norton, Lucie Duff Gordon, Margaret Oliphant, Mary Singleton ('Violet Fane'), and Janet Ross. In the late 1880s he developed cancer of the throat and he died on 2 January 1891.

The collection comprises of correspondence between Sir Richard Airey to Lord Hardinge, 1854-1856, letters from the Earl of Cardigan to Kinglake, 1863-1868, a journal of W.G. Romaine, 1855-1856 and other letters, memoranda and papers.

The papers were presented to the Fusiliers Museum in Lancashire by Major Ben Smythe in 1934. The Library purchased them at Sotheby's when they were sold on behalf of the Museum's Appeal Fund in 1998.

Please cite as Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, A.W. Kinglake: Crimean War correspondence and papers, MS Add.9554

Cambridge University Library holds other letters and papers of A.W. Kinglake, including some Crimean War material, MS.Add.7633.