Catalogue description LABOUCHERE COLLECTION

The Labouchère Collection comprises a wide variety of documents, letters, personal belongings, photographs, transcripts, and notes together with draft manuscripts, donated to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum over a number of years.

Darby family of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire

• Darby, Abraham, 1677-1717, iron manufacturer, of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire
• Darby, Abraham, 1711-1763, iron manufacturer, of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire
• Darby, Abraham, 1750-1791, iron manufacturer, of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire

It had its foundation in the endeavours of Matilda Darby and Adelaide Whitmore (née Darby) to rescue and collate the early Darby family items, helped by W.G.Norris, a former Works Manager, who also did much to preserve company records and letters, and A.E.W.Darby. Lady Labouchère, a descendant of Adelaide Whitmore, inherited much of this material and spent a great deal of time and effort adding to the collection in order to fully document the dramatic family history of the Darbys, using much of the material as the basis for her books on Abiah and Deborah Darby, qv. as well as generously making it available to IGMT and other researchers.

As items were donated over a number of years, or loaned to IGMT and others until her death, there are some idiosyncrasies in the way they have been filed, and many duplications in the various boxes as it will be seen that a single item may have more than one reference point.

It is advisable to look at transcripts and photocopied material before turning to primary sources

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