King’s College archive centre has recently acquired a unique collection of letters and photographs belonging to two of the younger members of the Bloomsbury Group. The letters of novelist Rosamond Lehmann and the diaries and photograph albums of diarist Frances Partridge, both of whom attended Cambridge colleges after the First World War, have been made open to the public for the first time.

As members of the Bloomsbury Group, both Lehmann and Partridge met, on an informal basis, with other writers, artists and intellectuals, such as Virginia Woolf and E.M Forster, and were to have a significant effect on twentieth century art and politics.

One letter from Partridge’s collection which has generated much interest is from art critic, Clive Bell, who married Woolf’s sister, Vanessa. In the letter, dated 3 April 1941; five days after Woolf’s disappearance, Bell writes, “I’m afraid there is not the slightest doubt that she drowned herself about noon last Friday...The prospect of two years insanity, then to wake up to the sort of world which another two years of war will have made, was such that I can't feel sure she was unwise."

Speaking to Varsity, George Potts, a student at Homerton College, expressed his excitement at the opportunity to discover more about the Bloomsbury luminaries: “As a Woolf fan, it will be interesting to glimpse further snatches of the workings of such a dark and troubled mind, and the personal correspondences discovered will help us gain a firmer understanding of her genius and her motivation.”

Virginia Nicholson, Woolf’s great-niece, hopes that the release of this collection could change the way Lehmann and Partridge are viewed in academic circles: “Frances has always been rather in the shadow of the greater members of the old Bloomsbury set... I truly believe she was one of the great diarists of her time.”

Whilst researching her book Rosamond Lehmann and Her Critics: The Vagaries of Literary Reception, Dr Wendy Pollard visited Partridge at her Belgravia home. Speaking to Varsity, Pollard explained that even several years ago, Partridge was intent, as “the last of the Bloomsbury set”, on depositing her papers in the college where the group had originated.

“Through their generosity, despite the inevitable fierce competition from archives abroad, King’s College have been able to accumulate a superb collection of Bloomsbury documents. The archive must now be commended for its willingness to make this latest acquisition available to the public.”