Key Information
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1934-1945 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent
1 box and 4 volumes
Scope and content
Papers and photographs, 1934-1945, including:
Press cuttings relating to a recruitment tour of the Scottish Highlands by the Royal Scots Greys, 1934.
Official correspondence and related papers, 1936-1944, including confidential reports on Lennox-Boyd, 1936 and 1937, and papers relating to Lennox-Boyd's service as Public Schools Liaison Officer and Lecturer to Schools, promoting the Royal Armoured Corps to potential recruits at schools and universities in Scotland and the north of England, 1942. Also Lennox-Boyd's passport, issued 1938.
Letters received by Lennox-Boyd, Palestine, 1939-1940, chiefly relating to Arab and Jewish volunteers for the Pioneer Corps. Also letters from European Jewish refugees wishing to serve in the British Army, requests from family members for their relatives to be released from service, and manuscript notes on suspected terrorists and criminals. File includes personal data and is CLOSED for review in 2020.
Portrait photographs, some captioned, originally labelled as Jewish and Arab volunteers for the Pioneer Corps, recruited by Lennox-Boyd, 1939-1940. Also some portrait photographs of men over-age for active service, and of women.
Intelligence summary by Lennox-Boyd as commander, Lydda area, Palestine, Apr 1940.
Two photograph albums, 1940, relating to Lennox-Boyd's service in Palestine and Egypt. Photographs, some captioned, include: fellow British Army officers; official propaganda photographs of Arab and Jewish recruits to the Pioneer Corps; views of the Egyptian desert and Egyptian antiquities, including pyramids; the terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo; British tanks in the desert; views of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside; luggage labels for hotels in Palestine. Also one file of loose photographs, some of them duplicates of images in the albums.
Uncaptioned photographs of scenery taken during a voyage between South Africa and Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the SS Orduna [1941].
Album of uncaptioned photographs [1942] of Scotland, chiefly views of scenery and unidentified castles. Also one file of similar loose photographs, with some duplicates, and also including snapshots of individuals, including British Army personnel.
Album of captioned official photographs of paratrooper training preparatory for the D Day landings, 1944, including airborne personnel in gliders and planes waiting to jump, parachutes in the air and exercises on Salisbury Plain, May 1944. Also a brief diary kept by Lennox-Boyd, Mar-Apr 1944, and notes on his Army career.
Correspondence, 1945-1946, relating to the settling of Lennox-Boyd's estate, following the discovery and identification of his body at Escoville, Normandy, France, Feb 1945.
System of arrangement
The papers and loose photographs are arranged in broadly chronological files, as described above.
General Information
Name of creator
Biographical history
Born, 1909; educated privately. BA Hons in English, Christ Church, Oxford, 1930; commissioned, Royal Scots Greys, 1935;served in Palestine with Royal Scots Greys, 1937-1940; Recruiting Officer, Southern Palestine, 1939-1940; attached to military mission to Pretoria and Basutoland, 1940-1941; Schools Liaison Officer, 3 Armoured Group, Northern Command, UK, 1942-1943; trained as a Paratrooper, 1943; Commanding Officer, 22 Independent Parachute Company, 1943; killed in action, D Day, 6 Jun 1944, parachuting into France with 22 Independent Parachute Company to mark drop zones for use by the British Airborne Division.
Repository
Custodial history
Placed in the Centre by the family, 2011
Conditions governing access
Some material is CLOSED but most of the collection is open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.
Conditions governing reproduction
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied from open material for research purposes only.
Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Archives.
Language of material
- Arabic
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
English, with some Arabic
Finding aids
This collection level description.
Related materials
Alternative identifier(s)
Subjects
Place access points
People and Organisations
Genre access points
Rules and/or conventions used
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000.