| Description | The Liddell Hart collection is a personalised 19th and early 20th Century fashion collection curated by Sir Basil Liddell Hart, containing not only works directly concerning fashion, but also on feminism, psychology of dress, and the social scene and society, including: books; journals; periodicals; original early coloured fashion plates; personalised scrapbooks containing clippings of cartoons, poems, and text from newspapers, periodicals, and books; copies of Liddell Hart's writings from 1947-1971; a selection of correspondence with Liddell Hart; and other items curated by Hart based on his personal interests in women's period fashion.
Please note that although this collection is not catalogued in CALM, a provisional list can be found attached in the Multimedia field here, and the book collection is catalogued and searchable via the LJMU Library Discovery: https://ljmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44JMU_INST:44JMU_VU1&lang=en |
| AdminHistory | Captain Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart was born in Paris in 1895 and educated at St Paul's London and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was regarded as the foremost military critic in Britain between the Wars and was military correspondent for The Times. He was commissioned into the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 1914; served in World War One, in Ypres and the Somme, 1914-1918; selected for the Royal Tank Corps, but invalided and retired on half pay, 1924; retired from the army as Capt, 1927; military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph , 1925-1935 and The Times , 1935-1939; author 1918-1970; personal adviser to Leslie Hore-Belisha, and Secretary of State for War, 1937-1938. He was Principal Adviser of Defence from 1935 to 1939. He died in 1970.
Sir Basil Liddell Hart was also a widely published author and authority on military history topics. See a list of his publications within the History section of his record at King's College London Archives here: https://archives.kingscollections.org/index.php/hart-sir-basil-henry-liddell-1895-1970-knight-captain-military-historian
Outside of his military and literary career, Sir Basil had a personal love of women's period fashion, particularly corsetry and tight lacing and collected many periodicals and scrapbooks related to this personal interest. He was referred to by James Laver in Museum Piece as one of the principal authorities on dress in England. |
| CustodialHistory | During his lifetime he collected two very different libraries: his military collection which is now held at King's College, University of London as the 'Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives'; and his highly personal collection of fashion now held with us at LJMU Special Collections & Archives.
Sir Basil Liddell Hart's collection of costume was curated over many years as a result of personal interests in women's fashion which he shared with his wife, with whom he was a founder member of the Costume Society. Through his already established connections with Charles Metcalfe, then Head of the Department of Fashion and Textiles, the Liverpool Polytechnic (precursor to LJMU) was offered his files of newspaper clippings and copies of fashion essays by Lady Liddell Hart in 1977, which the Liverpool Polytechnic purchased. The collection arrived at the Polytechnic in January 1978, just before the Liddell Hart Military Room was opened at King's College. LJMU was later able to purchase the book collection in its entirety from Sir Basil's son, Adrian Liddell Hart.
A later deposit of The Family Doctor, and 1880s periodical, was received by LJMU Special Collections & Archives from Peter Farrer in 2016. These periodicals originally belonged to Sir Basil Liddell Hart, and had been lent to Farrer because of their regular discussions and illustrations on women's fashion, particularly corsetry and tightlacing, which was a mutual interest between the two men. |