"The Duke presents his compliments": celebrating forty years of collecting archives

"The Duke presents his compliments": celebrating forty years of collecting archives is a new exhibition marking forty years of collecting archives at the University of Southampton since the arrival of the papers of the first Duke of Wellington in March 1983. This brought to Southampton the University's first major manuscript collection, leading to the creation of an Archives Department and the development of a major strand of activity within the University Library. In the ensuing four decades the Archives has expanded the scope of its collecting, set out in its collection policy, but including one of the largest collections of Jewish archives in Western Europe. This exhibition is a celebration of forty years of collecting at Southampton, illustrating something of the variety and range of material now held in the Special Collections