Peninsular War papers of S. G. P. Ward

Notes on European military history, with an especial focus on British forces, covering the period from the seventeenth century to the 1870s, but predominantly c.1750 to c.1850 (10 vols.); on European military campaigns, seventeenth century through to the Second World War (9 vols.); biographical notes on officers and others connected with military campaigns, especially for the Napoleonic Wars and the Peninsular War, seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries (11 vols.); biographies of officers in the Adjutant General's Department, brigade majors and aides-de-camp, for the Peninsular War (3 vols.), with a card index of Commissariat officials

Notes on the Murray papers in the National Library of Scotland and other sources relating to the Peninsular War (2 boxes and 7 vols.); transcript of Scovell's Peninsular diary (PRO WO 37/4, 6, 7A and 7B); extracts from the journals of Sir William Henry Clinton, 1786-1834, in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester; transcript of an autobiographical memoir of Sir Robert Hugh Kennedy

Notes for a biography of Sir George Murray (6 vols.), with photographs of buildings used by Wellington and Murray in the Peninsula.

Peninsular War papers of Stephen George Peregrine Ward, military historian. Mr Ward served in Western Command during the Second World War, during which time he was introduced to the administrative problems of running a general staff and to the Murray papers in the National Library of Scotland. This, together with the acquisition of many of the Peninsular War items from the library of Sir Charles Oman, c.1946, was the genesis of Ward's work on the Peninsula. This led to his Oxford B.Litt. thesis, published as WELLINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS: A STUDY OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEMS IN THE PENINSULA, 1809-1814 (Oxford, 1957), subsequent works, such as his WELLINGTON (London, 1963), and numerous articles in the JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR ARMY HISTORICAL RESEARCH.

Open for consultation

Compiled by Gwennyth Anderson

Lists

S. G. P. Ward's Peninsular War library, including the volumes from Sir Charles Oman's collection, was given to the University of Southampton Library at the same time as his working papers. Mr Ward's collections also included MSS 213, 271, 272/4 and 296.