IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Wintringham
Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London
Title: WINTRINGHAM, Capt Thomas Henry (1898-1949)
Date(s): [1914]-1982
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 23 boxes
Name of creator(s): Wintringham | Thomas Henry | 1898-1945 | socialist writer and military commentator
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Born 1898; educated Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, Balliol College Oxford; served Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force, France, 1916-1918; commanded British Bn International Brigade, near Madrid, 1937; helped establish Osterley Park Training School for Home Guard, 1940; throughout the 1930s and 40s was a prominent socialist author and military commentator; died 1949. Publications: War! And the way to fight against it (Communist Party of Great Britain, London, 1932); Air Raid Warning! Why the Royal Air Force is to be doubled (Workers' Bookshop, London, 1934); The coming world war (Wishart Books, London, 1935); Mutiny. Being a survey of mutinies from Spartacus to Invergordon (Stanley Nott, London, 1936); English Captain. Reminiscences of service in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (Faber & Faber, London, 1939); How to reform the army ('Fact No. 98', London, 1939); Armies of Freemen (G Routledge & Sons, London, 1940); New ways of war (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth and New York, 1940); Deadlock war (Faber & Faber, London, 1940); Ferdinand Otto Miksche, Blitzkrieg, translated by Tom Wintringham (Faber & Faber, London, 1941); The politics of victory (G Routledge & Sons, London, 1941); Freedom is our weapon. A policy for army reform (Kegan Paul & Co, London, 1941); Peoples' war (Penguin, Harmondsworth and New York, 1942); Weapons and tactics (Faber & Faber, London, 1943); with Col John Nicholas Blashford-Snell, Weapons and tactics (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973).
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers, [1914]-1982, including correspondence, articles, press cuttings and ephemera relating to the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigade, notably comprising manuscript and typescript correspondence and an article by Wintringham relating to his command of the British Bn, 15 International Bde and general experiences of the conflict, with photographs of Wintringham and war damage, and propaganda postcards produced by the Republican side, 1936-1938; newspaper articles and correspondence on Spain by Wintringham's future wife, Katherine Bowler, including a manuscript notebook of Bowler's experiences of the War, concerns about the destruction of Spanish works of art during the War, trade unions, collective farming, the possibility of gas warfare and land reforms in Spain, 1936-1937; drafts of articles, notes and correspondence by Bowler as a foreign correspondent on the Soviet Union including observations on its economic, cultural and social circumstances, 1936; wartime correspondence on the Common Wealth party and on military matters including with Basil Liddell Hart, John Strachey and Tom Hopkinson, 1939-1943; correspondence relating to the formation of the Home Guard, 1939-1940; report on 'Osterley Park Local Defence Volunteers Training School' with a photograph, [1940]; correspondence relating to the Home Guard, India, 1942; general correspondence by Wintringham and others, 1940-1949; proposals for a volunteer force for peace-keeping in Palestine, Feb 1948; Wintringham's pocket diary, 1943, 1945, 1947-48; Wintringham's Picture Post articles, 1940-1943; notes on Russo-Yugoslav relations; press cuttings in Spanish, German and English mainly on the Spanish Civil War, including a commemorative magazine of the German forces in Spain, 1936-1939; pamphlets, magazine articles and booklets by Wintringham and others on trade unionism, communism, the International Brigade, the Home Guard and World War Two guerilla warfare and plans for post-war reconstruction, Common Wealth party pamphlets and election material, on democracy, social security, poverty, international relations and the role of the individual in society, 1923-1949; English-Spanish grammar issued by the International Brigade, 1938; poems by Wintringham and others including on World War One and the Spanish Civil War, 1914-1937; obituaries and biographical articles on Wintringham, 1949-1982.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English, Spanish, German
System of arrangement:
Arranged into a number of boxes reflecting the original organisation of the collection: principally correspondence concerning the Spanish Civil War; copies of magazine and newspaper articles and ephemera.
Conditions governing access:
Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be provided for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
Summary guide available on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/top.htm, and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room. A hand list is also available for consultation.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Placed in the Centre by the Wintringham family in 1998
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
Collections also relating to the Spanish Civil War located in the Liddell Hart Centre include parts of the Bryant and Liddell Hart papers.
Manchester University: Labour History Archive and Study Centre: correspondence with Wintrington, 1931-1941.
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Sources: Who was who. Entry compiled by Geoff Browell.
Date(s) of descriptions: May 2003