The Papers of Sir Martin Gilbert

Martin John Gilbert was born on the 25 October 1936, the son of Peter and Miriam Gilbert. He was educated at Highgate School then Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1963 he married his first wife, Helen Constance Robinson, with whom he had one daughter. He has two sons with his second wife Susan Sacher.

Gilbert carried out his Army National Service from 1955-1957 before becoming a Senior Research Scholar at St Antony's College, Oxford (1960-62). He worked as a research assistant to Winston Churchill's son, Randolph S. Churchill, from 1962-67 on the first volumes of the Official Biography of Sir Winston Churchill and, after Randolph's death, became the Official Biographer of Sir Winston's life in 1968.

Gilbert has published numerous works including the multi-volume official biography of Sir Winston Churchill. Many of these works are about Churchill and a complete list of publications can be found in Sir Martin's entry in "Who's Who" (A & C Black).

The collection comprises correspondence between Sir Martin and Robert Hastings of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker about his work on the official biography. The correspondence was kept by Hastings. It was purchased at auction by Claude Sère, and donated by him to the Archives Centre.

One file was deposited at Churchill Archives Centre in 2002 by Claude Sère. A further three files were deposited by Claude Sère in September 2003.

The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge. Churchill Archives Centre is open from Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm. A prior appointment and two forms of identification are required.

Researchers wishing to publish excerpts from the papers must obtain prior permission from the copyright holder and should seek advice from Archives Centre staff.

Please cite as Churchill Archives Centre, The Papers of Sir Martin Gilbert, GLBT

Churchill Archives Centre also holds the papers of Sir Winston Churchill (references GBR 0014/CHAR and GBR/0014/CHUR). An electronic catalogue of the Churchill papers is available at http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/churchill_papers/. Churchill Archives Centre also holds a "Churchill Additional" collection of Collections of records pertaining to Sir Winston Churchill deposited from a variety of sources (reference GBR 0014/WCHL) which includes a substantial amount of material relating to the compilation of the official biography of Sir Winston.

The collection has been catalogued and a copy of the catalogue is available for consultation in the reading room at Churchill Archives Centre, at the National Register of Archives in London and on the Janus website http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk.

This collection level description was prepared by Natalie Adams of Churchill Archives Centre in June 2003, using information from Gilbert's entry in Who's Who (A & C Black). It was amended by Allen Packwood in September 2003.