Zone d'identification
Cote
Titre
Date(s)
- 1471 - 1855 (Création/Production)
Niveau de description
Collection
Étendue matérielle et support
7 albums
Zone du contexte
Nom du producteur
Notice biographique
Van de Weyer served as Belgium’s Prime minister from July 1845 to March 1846. However, he lived for the majority of his life in London (17 Fitzroy Square, 50 Portland Place) and Windsor (New Lodge), and held the office of Belgian Minister at the Court of St. James’s under Queen Victoria, an ambassadorial role. Van de Weyer was close friends with Lord Palmerston. In addition to being a member of the Roxburghe Club, Van de Weyer was a founder member of the Philobiblon Society, the Vice President of the London Library, a Member of the Société des Bibliophiles de Belgique and the Head of the Royal Library of Brussels.
Pierre Henri Laurent said of Van de Weyer: 'His manners, taste, and savoir-faire brought him into the vital center of the intellectual, diplomatic, and financial communities. His home became the meeting place of writers, artists, and scientists’.
Nom du producteur
Notice biographique
Elizabeth Van de Weyer (née Bates) was from Massachusetts and the only daughter Joshua Bates (1788-1864) of Barings Bank. She comforted Queen Victoria following the death of Prince Albert.
Histoire archivistique
The Van de Weyer albums of portraits, autographs and correspondence were given to the Old Library of Magdalene College by Mrs. Mary Van de Weyer in 1976. The albums were originally her husband’s, Sylvain Victor Bates Van de Weyer (1917-1976), Magdalene Alumnus and grandson of Lt.-Col Victor William Bates Van de Weyer (1839-1915), whose name appears on the armorial bookplates of four of the seven albums. The collection was accrued mostly by Victor William’s father, Jean Sylvain Van de Weyer (1802-1874), a known bibliophile of the Victorian era and Belgian lawyer and politician. To a lesser extent, Elizabeth Van de Weyer accrued some of the material for the collection. Many autograph letters were obtained due to Sylvain Van de Weyer’s responsibility for procuring passage to Belgium for UK citizens. However, Sylvain van de Weyer was a notable bibliophile in his day and therefore it is likely that other items in the collection were purchased by him, or given to him as gifts. Some of the autograph letters are addressed to Elizabeth Van de Weyer, and evidently she collected prints in her own right (see letter from Jared Sparks, album 7/f.31r).
None of items in the collection post-date Van de Weyer's death, however the later albums are bound in a smaller format and some items within the albums are loose, so it is unclear whether these were arranged by Sylvain Van de Weyer himself, by Elizabeth van de Weyer (d.1878) or by one of their descendants before being donated to Magdalene College.
Some of the autographs of the most prominent figures listed in the albums have been removed prior to the collection's transfer to Magdalene College.
Zone du contenu et de la structure
Portée et contenu
The albums contain engraved portraits, autographs and correspondence of notable individuals chiefly from the United Kingdom, Belgium and France, but other countries are also represented. The vast majority of these items are from the 19th century, with an engraved portrait of the individual on the verso of the album page and a corresponding autograph/letter from that individual to Sylvain Van de Weyer or Elizabeth Van de Weyer on the recto of the album page. There is also a small grouping of older items relating to French historical figures.
Many of the items are undated, therefore the date range of the collection is taken from items which can be dated to a specific year.
Évaluation, élimination et calendrier de conservation
Accroissements
Mode de classement
Zone des conditions d'accès et d'utilisation
Conditions d’accès
Conditions de reproduction
Langue des documents
- anglais
- français
- moyen français
- espagnol
Écriture des documents
Notes de langue et graphie
Caractéristiques matérielle et contraintes techniques
Instruments de recherche
Zone des sources complémentaires
Existence et lieu de conservation des originaux
Existence et lieu de conservation des copies
Unités de description associées
Zone des notes
Note
The extent of each letter has been described to reflect how many leaves of paper there are, and how many leaves have been written on, to give an indication of the length of the letter. For example "1 leaf of paper, 2 p." denotes that both sides of the leaf have been written on.
Identifiant(s) alternatif(s)
Mots-clés
Mots-clés - Sujets
Mots-clés - Lieux
Mots-clés - Noms
Mots-clés - Genre
Zone du contrôle de la description
Identifiant de la description
Identifiant du service d'archives
Règles et/ou conventions utilisées
Statut
Niveau de détail
Dates de production, de révision, de suppression
Langue(s)
Écriture(s)
Sources
Magdalene College Magazine and Record, New Series No. 20, 1975-1976, p.20
Laurent, P. (1963). ‘The Belgian Archives and the Van de Weyer Papers’. The American Archivist, 26(2), 177-184.