A campaign for money to buy “significant” library items from Thomas Hardy’s home in Dorchester, has been achieved within just three days.

Dorset Archives Trust made the urgent public appeal for £5,000 on December 4, the final chunk of £50,000 needed to buy 46 separate treasures from the library at Max Gate. They include schoolboy Hardy’s annotated copy of Horace, letters from Hardy expressing support for animal welfare and a poem written for soldiers bound for the Boer War.

The fundraising page was closed within 72 hours, having hit £5,051. The total is enhanced by a further £1,000 of gift aid donations. Carola Campbell, Chairman of Dorset Archives Trust (DAT) said: “The trust is thrilled to have had the opportunity to acquire this collection on behalf of the Dorset History Centre. Particularly exciting are the new insights this once hidden treasure of archival material reveals about the private thoughts and life of Thomas Hardy. It will enhance our knowledge and enduring fascination with this key British author and support learning and public engagement with Hardy and his world.”

Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd

“The archives were in private hands for decades and were offered for sale through a London dealer. It is “the most significant to have been offered for sale for many years,” said a DAT spokesman.

The trust moved quickly to secure two separate grants – one of £20,000 from Friends of the National Libraries, and another of £25,000 from The Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

Other items in the collection are Hardy’s personal edition of John Pouncy’s Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated and Hardy’s typescript of a speech he delivered at the opening of Hardye’s Grammar School in Dorchester in 1925.

A Christmas card from Max Gate dated 1926

The collection will now sit alongside the principal Hardy archive housed and made accessible in the Dorset History Centre. The majority of the collection is owned by Dorset County Museum and both parties work with other organisations to ensure the “internationally significant” archive receives the attention it merits, said the spokesman. In the future, the Dorset History Centre is planning a project to fully catalogue and conserve the Hardy archives.

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