Guide to the Gibbon Family Papers ,
1519-1813
Department of Special Collections
Green Library
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, CA 94305-6004
Phone: (650) 725-1022
Email: speccollref@stanford.edu
URL: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/
© 1999
The Board of Trustees of Stanford University. All rights reserved.
Guide to the Gibbon Family Papers ,
1519-1813
Collection number: M0348
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, California
Contact Information
- Department of Special Collections
- Green Library
- Stanford University Libraries
- Stanford, CA 94305-6004
- Phone: (650) 725-1022
- Email: speccoll@sulmail.stanford.edu
- URL: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/
- Processed by:
- Special Collections staff
- Date Completed:
- ca. 1981
© 1999 The Board of Trustees of Stanford University. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Gibbon Family Papers ,
Date (inclusive): 1519-1813
Collection number: Special Collections M0348
Creator:
Gibbon family
Extent:
1 linear ft.
Repository:
Stanford University. Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
None.
Publication Rights
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
Provenance
Gift of W. B. Carnochan, 1981.
Preferred Citation:
[Identification of item] Gibbon Family Papers , M0348, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
Biographical Note
Edward Gibbon was born in Putney, 27 April 1737. His mother died in 1747, and his father, Edward Gibbon (1707-1770), retired
from a political career to live at Buriton, near Petersfield, in Hampshire. Gibbon entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1752,
but left in 1753 without taking a degree. He spent the next five years living in Lausanne, Switzerland and returned to England
in 1758, when his father married his second wife, Dorothea Gibbon, (née Patton).
At Lausanne in 1764 Gibbon met John Baker Holroyd (1735-1821), the first Earl of Sheffield. He became his most intimate friend
and most important correspondent. In this year as well the idea came to him to write a comprehensive history of Rome: as I
sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the Temple of Jupiter... the
idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind. However, filial obligations and military service
prevented him from devoting himself to writing full-time until his father's death in November, 1770. He then moved to London,
where the eight volumes of his
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire were published at regular intervals starting in 1776. He took up residence again at Lausanne in 1783, where he continued his
work on
The Decline and Fall. He returned to England upon the death of the first Lady Sheffield in 1793. He died suddenly of gout in 1794 and was buried
at Fletching Church, Sussex. In 1796 Lord Sheffield published two quarto volumes of Gibbon's
Miscellaneous Works. A second edition was printed in 1814.
Scope and Content
Special Collections M0348 consists of letters, household bills and accounts, and legal documents related to the Gibbon Family.
The three autograph letters by Edward Gibbon are addressed to Mrs. Holroyd, the first Lady Sheffield, at Brighthelmstone.
The first concerns his father's fatal illness, 1770. The other two are light in tone, as he jokes about the dilatory nature
of her dressmaker and his bookbinder (Madame de Sevigné... is now in Hall's hands from which books do not easily escape) and
sends her news of mutual friends, 1775. The collection also includes letters to Lord Sheffield by Jean David Levade, a professor
of moral theology at the Séminaire de Lausanne, announcing the death of one of Gibbon's closest friends, Mme. Catherine Charrière
de Sévery, 1796; by W. Charrière de Severy, her son, one concerning Gibbon's legacy to him, 1796-1820; and G. H. de Seigneux,
1820. There are two letters by Hester Gibbon, Edward Gibbon's aunt, one of which refers to her nephew, the historian, 1786.
There is also a letter from Francis North, later second Earl of Guilford, to his sister Anne, later Countess of Sheffield
and third wife of John Baker Holroyd, in which he gives an irreverent description of Gibbon at a party in Lausanne, 1791.
The collection also contains a memorandum of an agreement, signed, between Lord Sheffield and John Murray, for publication
of Gibbon's
Miscellaneous Works.
The household documents include Edward Gibbon senior's house and farm account book at Buriton, 1765, and fragments of the
account book, 1767, household correspondence, bills and accounts, 1742-70. Also included are letters and documents concerning
the estate of Dorothea Gibbon, 1790-97 and photocopies of sequestered papers relating to the Gibbon property at Mapledurham,
1693-1744.
Container List
Series I: Letters to Lady Sheffield
Box 1, Folder 1
Gibbon, Edward. TLS to Lady Sheffield,
13 April 1770(?).
Physical Description: 2pp.
Box 1, Folder 2
Gibbon, Edward. TLSs to Lady Sheffield,
1775.
Physical Description: 2 items.
Series II: Letters to Lord Sheffield
Box 1, Folder 3
Barrett, John. TLS to Lord Sheffield,
29 January, 1816.
Physical Description: 1p.
Box 1, Folder 4
Charrière de Sévery, W. TLSs to Lord Sheffield,
1794-1820.
Physical Description: 4 items.
Box 1, Folder 5
Gibbon, Hester. TLSs to Lord Sheffield,
1886.
Physical Description: 2 items.
Box 1, Folder 6
Levade, Jean David. TLS to Lord Sheffield,
20 January, 1796.
Physical Description: 1p.
Box 1, Folder 7
Murray, John. TLS to Lord Sheffield and Memorandum of Agreement,
1813-1815.
Physical Description: 2 items.
Box 1, Folder 8
North, Francis. TLS to Anne North,
29 January, 1791.
Physical Description: 2pp.
Box 1, Folder 9
de Seigneux, G.H. TLS to Lord Sheffield,
6 June 1820.
Physical Description: 2pp.
Series III. The Gibbon Family's Household Documents
Box 1, Folder 10
Miscellaneous Correspondence,
1742.
Physical Description: 2 items.
Box 1, Folder 11
Miscellaneous Correspondence,
1760-69.
Physical Description: 23 items.
Box 1, Folder 12
Miscellaneous Correspondence,
1773-1814.
Physical Description: 3 items.
Box 1, Folder 13
Edward Gibbon's Account Book,
1765.
Box 1, Folder 14
Fragments of Edward Gibbon's Account Book,
1767.
Physical Description: 11 items
Box 1, Folder 15
Bills and Receipts,
1690-1765 (and undated).
Physical Description: 39 items.
Box 1, Folder 16
Bills and Receipts,
1760-96.
Box 1, Folder 17
Household Accounts,
1753-67.
Physical Description: 13 items.
Box 1, Folder 18
Miscellaneous.
Physical Description: 5 items.
Series IV. Documents Concerning the Estate of Dorothea Gibbon
Box 2, Folder 1
Gibbon, Dorothea. Last Will and Testament,
2 February, 1794.
Physical Description: 1p.
Box 2, Folder 2
Documents Concerning the Estate of Dorothea Gibbon,
1790-97.
Physical Description: 14 items.
Box 2, Folder 3
Letters Concerning the Estate of Dorothea Gibbon,
1790-97.
Physical Description: 16 items.
Series V. Papers Concerning the Gibbon Property at Mapledurham
Box 2, Folder 4
Photocopies of sequestered papers concerning the Gibbon property at Mapledurham,
1694-1744.
Physical Description: 45 items.
Box 2, Folder 5
Photocopies of sequestered papers concerning the Gibbon property at Mapledurham,
1694-1744.
Physical Description: 23 items.
