Today is the official launch of the Letters of Richard Cobden Online. This resource contains a searchable collection of digital transcripts of letters written by Cobden and a virtual exhibition of the original documents. Dr Simon Morgan, Principal Investigator for the project, explains more…
Tuesday 19 September sees the official launch of the Letters of Richard Cobden Online. Fittingly for such a great Parliamentarian, this takes place at Portcullis House, Westminster, home to the offices of many serving MPs. The centrepiece of the project is a website containing a searchable collection of nearly 5,700 digital transcripts of letters written by this important nineteenth-century statesman. Alongside the transcripts are explanatory essays providing context on the different political campaigns in which Cobden was involved as well as aspects of his private and business life, and a virtual exhibition of scanned original documents provided by over half of the 150 or so public and private archives so far identified as holding Cobden letters. It also includes resources for the teaching of History and Citizenship at Key Stage 3.
This is the culmination of an endeavour that began in 2002, with the then standard aim of producing an annotated scholarly edition published in hard copy by Oxford University Press. Under the direction of Anthony Howe, the project produced an acclaimed selected edition of Cobden’s letters in four volumes. However, thousands of transcripts remained unpublished, and therefore virtually inaccessible. Twenty years after the project began, the original team of Anthony Howe and Simon Morgan has re-united to finish the job, alongside Helen Dampier who brings her invaluable experience of previous digitization projects including the Olive Schreiner Letters Online and the Emily Hobhouse Letters.
The theme of the new AHRC-funded project is ‘Active Citizenship’; its aim, to find ways of using Cobden’s letters to inspire the active citizens of the present and future. To this end, in conjunction with Archives+, the project organised an exhibition on Cobden’s life, work and legacy at Manchester’s Central Library in Spring 2023 entitled ‘Richard Cobden: Manchester Citizen to International Man’. This was supplemented by a ‘Collection Encounter’ at the John Rylands University Library, Manchester, which prompted two visitors to sign up as readers on the spot – apparently inspired by Cobden’s campaigning example.
However, at the heart of the project has been our work with schools in West Yorkshire and Rochdale, both areas that Cobden represented in Parliament between 1847 and 1857, and 1859 and 1865 respectively. Small numbers of Year 9 students were selected by their teachers for leadership coaching from the GreenWing Project, and then tasked with leading groups of Year 7 or 8 learners to produce group presentations on how Cobden’s legacy has inspired them to be active citizens in the present day. As well as the tremendous impact on the students involved, the longer-term legacy is a body of teaching resources developed by Rachel Wood of GreenWing, which can be freely downloaded from the website.
The project would like to thank The History of Parliament Trust, who have provided invaluable support. Not only have they arranged the launch event itself, but they have also allowed their annual Schools competition to be themed around the project. Pupils were asked to produce an ‘essay’ (also including posters, blog posts, podcasts or videos), explaining how the past example of campaigners like Cobden had inspired them to make a difference to their communities in the present.
The winning entrant from Lawnswood School in Leeds, inspired by Cobden’s use of the written word to spread his ideas, conceived of a campaign called ‘Black Voices Matter’. This involved putting up posters in the School Library drawing the attention of pupils to books by black authors who they might otherwise have ignored. The judging panel thought that, like many of the best campaigning ideas, this was both incredibly simple and extremely effective. They also appreciated the way in which the winning entry drew on the past, while coming up with an idea brilliantly suited to addressing issues of relevance to the present and future.
The Letters of Richard Cobden Online team hope that you will enjoy the letters and associated resources. We would also love to hear back from you with any feedback about the site, and of course any new letters you may discover! You can do this via a form on the website, or by contacting Simon Morgan on s.j.morgan@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.
Simon Morgan (Principal Investigator, Leeds Beckett University)
Anthony Howe (Co-Investigator, University of East Anglia)
Helen Dampier (Co-Investigator, Leeds Beckett University)
