Correspondence of the Spring-Rice Family I

Scope and Content

Letters of the Spring-Rice family, as follows:

  • Numbers 1-13: letters to the Rt Hon. Thomas Spring-Rice, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon, mainly from his son the Hon. Charles (1835-1866, 13 items);
  • Numbers 14-129: letters to the Hon. Stephen Edmond Spring-Rice, mainly from his brother Charles and sister-in-law Elizabeth (née Marshall) (1836-1865, 116 items);
  • Numbers 130-141: letters to Mrs Stephen Spring-Rice (née Ellen Frere), mainly from her brother-in-law Charles (1851-1869, 12 items);
  • Numbers 142-277: letters to the Hon. Charles Spring-Rice, mainly from his father Lord Monteagle, his sister Theodosia (later Lady Taylor) and his brother the Hon. Stephen Edmond (1835-1867, 136 items);
  • Numbers 278-283: letters to Mrs Charles Spring-Rice (née Elizabeth Marshall) from her husband (1854-1865, 6 items);
  • Numbers 284-304: letters to miscellaneous correspondents, including letters to Theodosia, Lady Taylor, Thomas, 2nd Baron Monteagle, and Agnes and Stephen Edward, children of the Hon. Charles Spring-Rice (21 items).
The correspondence is for the most part personal in content, but contains many references to and comments on political and other events at home and abroad, affairs in Ireland in the 1840s, and routine administration in the Foreign Office, in which the Hon. Charles Spring-Rice served for twenty-nine years. See also English MSS 1284-1286  below.