Sir Herbert Butterfield: Papers

Herbert Butterfield was born in Oxenhope, near Keighley in Yorkshire, in 1900. In 1919 he entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, as a scholar in history, and in 1923 was elected a fellow of that college. In 1944 he took up the university chair of modern history, and in 1963 was appointed Regius Professor of modern history. He had been elected Master of Peterhouse in 1955, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University from 1959 to 1961. He was editor of the Cambridge historical journal from 1938 to 1952, and was President of the Historical Association from 1955 to 1958. He retired from the mastership and his chair in 1968, the year he was knighted. Butterfield published widely throughout his working life. His most influential books were The Whig interpretation of history (1931), The Englishman and his history (1944), Christianity and history (1949), The origins of modern science (1949) and Man on his past (1955). He maintained an interest in orthodox diplomatic and political history of the eighteenth century alongside investigations into historiography and the nature of Christianity. Typical of his concern for historiographical questions was his long interest in the work of Lord Acton. He produced a number of publications on this subject, but his support for propositions to initiate a comprehensive publication of Acton's correspondence and working papers proved fruitless. In his later years, Butterfield was involved in the British Committee on the Theory of International Politics, which met under his aegis in Peterhouse. Sir Herbert Butterfield died in July 1979.

The papers described in this catalogue date chiefly from the end of the Second World War to the 1970s; from the beginning of this period Butterfield was assisted in his University and college duties by a secretary. The collection documents almost all aspects of his academic life and writings, and provides a record of the wider development of historical studies over the course of his career.

Presented by Lady Pamela Butterfield in January 1980 via the Friends of Cambridge University Library.

Butterfield apparently maintained his papers in rough order during his life. At the commencement of the compilation of this catalogue, the papers were found to be grouped in a succession of folders and box files, most of which had been allotted brief titles by Butterfield. During the process of arrangement and listing, the papers were sorted into files based on Butterfield's own system. The integrity of the contents of each of Butterfield's files has on the whole been respected; only in a few cases have papers been transferred from one file to another in order that related correspondence or other material may be located together. In most cases, the titles of the files in this list are Butterfield's own; only when a title was potentially misleading to researchers, or bore no relation at all to the contents of the file, was it altered. There was no order apparent in the sequence of files as they were found; the present arrangement has adopted a series of broadly thematic sequences. Within each file there has frequently been some re-ordering of papers: in particular, runs of correspondence have generally been arranged in chronological order. A large portion of Butterfield's correspondence was found partially arranged in alphabetical order, and this material was sorted and listed by Dr Mark Nicholls before the present catalogue was undertaken. The resulting list, with a few minor emendations, now comprises the final file entry of this catalogue, 531.

Please cite as Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Sir Herbert Butterfield: Papers, MS Butterfield

A number of diaries and other personal papers were retained by the family, and a few files which referred exclusively to University business were transferred to the University Archives.