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Correspondence files of Farrer & Co. for their client Marquis Camden relating to Arthur Henry Walsh (third lord Ormathwaite from 1920) and Lady Clementine. Much of the correspondence is with Lord Camden and with H. J. W. Holt of Broughton, Holt & Middlemist, lord Ormathwaite’s solicitor and receiver of the Ormathwaite estates. Arthur William Stanton of Vandercom, Stanton & Co. was appointed Ormathwaite’s receiver in 1928 in place of Mr Holt, and was himself replaced by Harold Marson Farrer in 1932. The letters were given the reference ‘D 2’ from at least July 1920 onwards.

Original bundle of correspondence files. The original references on the letters in C 3/2, 4-9 are mainly ‘E 2’; the receipts in C 3/1 have no reference numbers, and letters in C 3/3 are ‘D 2’ and ‘A 4’.

Correspondence. The family correspondence has been divided into two groups: bound and unbound letters. With the exception of G 1 below all the bound family letters (G 2-51) were arranged and stitched together by Sir John Walsh in 1828 and 1837 and afterwards placed in uniform box files: these were labelled 'Family Letters & Papers' together with the appropriate number. The correspondence (roughly 2,500 letters) begins after Sir John Walsh's departure to Eton in 1811 and ends with his mother's death in 1836. The first extant box file is numbered 'Vol. VII'; presumably the first six box files contained (at least) the correspondence between Sir John Walsh's parents between 1786 and 1811 since very few such letters have survived in this archive or in the archive now housed at the India Office Library. The unbound family correspondence comprises a small number of letters missed by Sir John Benn Walsh (many in fact were tucked away in his mother's diaries) and a small remnant of what was once a large body of post-1836 family letters (see Introduction).

Diaries of Arthur John Walsh mainly family and domestic, military duties, London season, shooting parties and country house parties [cf. Fh 5/1-2 and the photographic albums in the Dept. of Pictures and Maps, Pz 3189-98], meetings of co. Rad. quarter sessions and, from 1889, the county council and the deteriorating state of the family finances. There are no diaries for 1897-9 and 1903-6. The diaries include visits to France, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, 10 Oct. 1849 - 1 Apr. 1850 (Fh 1/1); his tour of duty in Varna [Bulgaria], 5 Apr. - 22 Sept. 1854 (Fh 1/3); his assessment of Prince Albert, 14 Dec. 1861 (Fh 1/6); election campaign in Leominster, Herefordshire, 19 Mar. - 4 Apr., 11-13 July, 1865 (Fh 1/8); brief accounts of parliamentary debates, his committee work in the House and meetings of Conservative M.P.s, 1866-80 (Fh 1/9-15 passim); election canvasses in co. Rad., 27 Mar. - 29 Apr. 1868 (Fh 1/10) and 16 May 1873 - 11 May 1874 (Fh 1/12); brief account of a riot in London, 8 Feb. 1886 (Fh 1/18) and a visit to Tangier and Gibraltar, 27 Feb. - 7 Mar. 1886 (Fh 1/18).

Diaries of Margaret Walsh. To avoid tedious repetition the general contents of the diaries can be summarised as follows: ill-health of various members of the family; visits, dinner engagements, London season, alterations to Warfield, reading and her mathematical exercises or 'propositions' as she calls them, that is, propositions in Sir Isaac Newton's Principia. All the diaries contain a list of letters written by Margaret Walsh; most contain lists of visitors received and visits made, dosages of medicine taken by her and a few medical recipes. The diaires have been numbered on the front cover by Margaret Walsh. The first diary, covering 1807-10 is now missing and her diary no. 13, for 1821, was missing when she drew up an inventory of her diaries in 1825 (Fe 4/15, f. 159) (but note that she has made an error in this inventory since she states that it is her diary no. 14 for 1822 that is missing: in fact this is FC 4/12). Her entries for Dec. 1819 were kept in a separate 'small book' (Fe 4/15, f. 159) and this is also no longer extant. Apparently, she kept her diaries until 1836, when she died, but those for 1829-36 have not survived.

Diaries of Sir John Walsh. In many respects the diaries are similar in contents to his mother's (i.e. personal and domestic) but with more emphasis on the London season and politics and they are, in general, far more detailed. The earlier diaries are dominated by his obsessive ambition to make a mark in society. By endeavouring to create a web of connexions he sought to become known to the most powerful and fashionable aristocratic families in England. Such connections would, he hoped, fulfil both his marital and political ambitions. He has some very pertinent things to say about the closing down of the avenues of advancement after the end of the Napoleonic wa[?r]s when the aristocracy closed ranks [see Fg 1/3-4]. After his marriage in 1825 the diaries, naturally, are more domestic: the pleasures and pains of parenthood and later of grand-parenthood, family holidays, his wife's relations, etc. The frequent visits which he made to co. Rad. to inspect his estates, or to reside there for a few months usually at the end of the year, to attend the Assizes, Quarter Sessions, etc., have not as a rule been included in what follows. The dates of these activities can be ascertained from the summary of his diaries in Fg 1/43. He also made frequent visits to his Irish estates in Cos Kerry and Cork, Ireland: these will also not be referred to below since the relevant entries have been published by James S. Donnelly Jr, 'The Journals of Sir John Benn-Walsh Relating to the Management of His Irish Estates, 1823-64' in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, vols LXXX, No. 230 (1974), pp. 86-123, and LXXXI, No. 231 (1975), pp. 15-42. His diaries covering 31 Sept. 1816 to 21 July 1822 and 1 Jan. 1825 to 31 Dec. 1829 are missing. For a summary of their contents see Fg 1/43, pp. 62-77.