The Eliot-Phelips Collection Project

History

Little is yet known about the motivation behind this fascinating collection, although it is tempting to speculate whether the focus on Spain was initially inspired by the involvement of Sir Robert Phelips (1586?-1638) in the Spanish marriage negotiations of 1615. The collection was formed by Edward Frederick Phelips (1882-1928), of Montacute House, Somerset. In 1928 he bequeathed it to the Corporation of London in memory of his sister, Clare Louisa Eliot, wife of the Hon. Edward Granville Eliot; in 1950 the Guildhall Library placed it on permanent deposit in Senate House Library. In the report of the Phelips bequest which appeared in The Times on October 12th, 1928, it was described as a 'collection believed to be unrivalled outside Spain'.

The Eliot family also had connections with Spain, through Lord Eliot (1798-1877), later 3rd Earl of St. Germans, and grandfather of Clare Louisa's husband, who was sent to Spain by the British government in 1834 to negotiate what became known as the 'Eliot Convention' on the treatment of prisoners-of-war during the Carlist war then raging. The link between the Phelips and Eliot families may have originated as far back as the 17th century, when both Sir Robert Phelips and his contemporary Sir John Eliot (1592-1632) were prominent Parliamentarians, sitting for Cornish constituencies, and had both been associates at different times of the Duke of Buckingham.

shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 020 7862 8470