Russell Mortimer Quaker research collection
Details
Type of record: Archive
Title: Russell Mortimer Quaker research collection
Classmark: MS 1724
Creator(s): Mortimer, Russell Stanley()
Date(s): 19--
Language: English
Size and medium: Some 70 boxes and bundles of various sizes, together with 53 black springback binders.
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/7504
Description
The research archive consists of six broad elements as follows: (A) A detailed slip index recording biographical information about individual Quakers, mainly from the Leeds area; (B) Research notes and correspondence relating to individual Quakers, and to Quaker families, meetings, and meeting houses, predominantly in Yorkshire; (C) Files of information on particular Quaker meeting houses, in Britain and the United States; (D) and (E) Detailed lists of the contents of documents held in the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives, respectively, considerably more detailed than the information given in the published handlists to these collections; (F) Extensive miscellaneous material relating to Yorkshire Quaker matters, unsorted, but notably relating to Carlton Hill, Gildersome, Rawdon, and Roundhay preparative meetings in Leeds, and to Leeds and Brighouse monthly meetings (it is likely that much of this material will in future be moved into the Carlton Hill archive itself).
Biography or history
Russell Mortimer (1914-2004), librarian, member of the Society of Friends, and Quaker historian, spent almost all of his professional life in the service of Leeds University Library, which he first joined in 1938 and from where he retired (as Senior Sub-Librarian) in 1979. He researched and published on the history of Quakers in Bristol (from where he graduated BA and MA), but his greatest energies went into preserving and studying the surviving archives of Friends in Yorkshire. What are now known as the Carlton Hill [Leeds] and Clifford Street [York] archives make up the bulk of the very extensive collection of Yorkshire Quaker archives now held in Special Collections at Leeds University Library. Russell Mortimer devoted his retirement to organising these archives and seeing to their indexing. He was for many years one of the editors of the 'Journal of the Friends' Historical Society'. Together with his wife Jean he published an edition of 'Leeds Friends' Minute Book, 1692-1712'
(1980).
System of arrangement
Sections A to C are each arranged alphabetically by personal or place name; sections D and E are arranged in the order of the documents in the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives.
Access and usage
Access
This collection has not been listed in detail and access to parts of it may be protected under the Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation. If you would like to request access to any part of this collection, please contact Special Collections. Upon receipt of your request, a member of the team will discuss your requirements with you and review relevant material accordingly