Collected Letters of Hugh Stanley Wilson (1885-1915)

While at King's, Hugh Wilson had joined the circle of young men who frequented the house in Trumpington Street of Charles Sayle, librarian, poet and literary scholar, a circle which in Wilson's day included Rupert Brooke and Cosmo Gordon of King's, George Mallory of Magdalene, and H.F. Garrett and G.L. Keynes of Pembroke. After leaving Cambridge and going abroad Wilson maintained his friendships with Sayle and with several of his contemporaries, principally by means of the written word. The flow of letters slackened once he had settled at Rugby, but increased again during his months on active service. Wilson was an interesting and entertaining letter-writer, and following his death Sayle decided to edit and publish a memorial volume of his letters, which appeared in 1919. The correspondence below comprises letters given to Sayle for this purpose (not all of which were included in the published volume), and his own correspondence with Wilson's family and others.

Hugh Wilson, son of J.M. Wilson, Canon of Worcester, entered King's College, Cambridge in 1904. He took a pass degree in 1907, and then spent much of the next four years on the Continent, teaching in France and learning German. He returned to England in 1911 on his appointment as an assistant master at Rugby, and spent three happy years at the school. Shortly after the outbreak of war in August 1914 he joined the Worcestershire Regiment as a private, and received a commission in November. His battalion (of which he became Signalling Officer) arrived in Flanders in April 1915, and he was killed in action on the night of 14/15 September of that year.

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The letters seem to have been acquired by Cambridge University Library in 1924.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.