Record

MS OGDEN - Ogden Manuscript Collection

StorageSite	UCL Special Collections
Level	Collection
Reference Number	MS OGDEN
Title	Ogden Manuscript Collection
Date	13th Century-20th Century
Description	Manuscripts on a range of subjects including theology, law, language and literature. Paricular strengths of the collection are the early modern commonplace books and late 19th and early 20th century literary manuscripts.
Extent	158 items
AdminHistory	Manuscripts purchased from the library of the linguist Charles Kay Ogden in 1953. UCL acquired a portion of Ogden's library totalling around 5,000 volumes, including 20 incunables, "many early printed books", and a large number of modern works on linguistics and the study of communication. It also contained various bound manuscripts and over 1,000 packets of Brougham correspondence. At one time Ogden's library contained over 50,000 printed books and manuscripts dating from the medieval period to the 20th century. The majority of these books were purchased by the University of California after Ogden's death in 1957. There are around 150 manuscripts in UCL's collection and they are arranged approximately by date. Within MS Ogden there is a sub-section known as the "Bacon-Tottel" collection, so called because they were believed to have been compiled for Francis Bacon by his clerk William Tottel (or Tothill), although it is now known that this is not the case. This sub-group can be found under the reference MS Ogden 7. Note that not all of the Bacon-Tottel manuscripts currently have online catalogue records, but a list was compiled by Stuart Clark in 1976 (see bibliography).
Acquisition	Part of the C K Ogden Library acquired by University College London in 1953. Ogden's library was acquired by UCL with funding from the Nuffield Foundation on the understanding that it would be used for a new Communications Research Centre at UCL which was established around the same time. The legal ownership of the collection once it had been moved to UCL was complicated initially by the external source of funding. Although the legal purchase agreement was made between Ogden and the Provost of UCL, it was privately understood by UCL and the Nuffield Foundation that UCL were acting on behalf of the Foundation, and the Foundation would be the legal owner of the books. The Foundation therefore loaned the library to UCL, initially for a period of at least ten years; this was converted to a gift in 1956. Efforts to secure the funds necessary to acquire the remaining 20,000 books of Ogden's "working library" were unsuccessful.
AccessStatus	Open
AccessConditions	The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.
FindingAids	Some of these manuscripts are included in: N R Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries / 1, London / by N. R. Ker. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). A copy is held in Stores.

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