"The Shane Leslie-Godfrey Faussett Archive"

The letters from Beatty to Eugenie came to Churchill College in three batches.

(a) Eugenie gave Leslie 58, and he gave them to Captain Roskill in about 1956, but later asked to have them back, a request with which Roskill felt obliged to comply. After Leslie's death his widow and daughter made a protracted search for the letters but failed to find them. Not until 1978 was it discovered that Leslie had sold them to John J. Fleming, the well-known New York dealer in books and manuscripts, who had entered them for sale at Christies. After much correspondence about the circumstances in which the letters came into his hands Fleming generously agreed to halve the reserve price.

The letters were bought by George Godfrey Faussett on 8 March 1978 and given to the College.

(Note Although Christies' catalogue for 8 March 1978 refers to 57 Beatty letters there are in fact 58, now chronologically inserted in 15/1 and 15/2)

(b) When in 1968 Captain Roskill told Eugenie's son that he had the 58 letters referred to above Mr George Godfrey Faussett said he believed there were more in his father's papers, and he would search for them. The outcome was the discovery of 99 more letters, which he generously gave to the College to make the collection more complete.

(c) When the Leslie papers reached Captain Roskill and he sorted them he discovered one more Beatty-Eugenie letter and one detached sheet in them. These have now been added to the main collection, making a total of 158 letters.