[Sir Thomas Phillipps.] Photostat of the Deed of Settlement between Messrs Lionel and Philip Robinson, Anthony Forbes Moir and Anthony Jamieson Haggie, regarding the disposal of 'the residue' of the collection of manuscripts of Sir Thomas Phillipps.

12pp., 4to. On Gevaert paper. In very good condition, on twelve lightly-aged leaves stapled together. Present as part of the photostat is the stamp '19 MAY 1960 | No. 14728' in the top left-hand corner of the first page, which also reproduces the four Inland Revenue tax stamps. The document is a typescript, and begins: 'THIS DEED OF SETTLEMENT is made the [twelfth] day of [May] One thousand nine hundred and sixty BETWEEN LIONEL KEIR ROBINSON of Redwalls Beech Hill Hadley Wood in the County of Herts Company Director who is hereinafter individually called "Mr. Lionel Robinson" and PHILIP RAMSAY ROBINSON of 113 Frognal Hampstead in the County of London Company Director who is hereinafter individually called "Mr. Philip Robinson" and they are together hereinafter referred to as "the Settlors" of the one part and ANTHONY FORBES MOIR of 70 Pall Mall in the said County of London Solicitor and ANTHONY JAMIESON HAGGIE of 94 Jermyn Street in the said County of London Wine Merchant (hereinafter together called "the Trustees"'. (Anthony Forbes Moir was, according to his obituary in The Times (9 June 1967), 'legal adviser to Sir Winston Churchill'. Haggie was the proprietor of Christopher & Co. of Jermyn St, said to be the oldest wine merchants in London.) The deed states that the Robinsons each hold a half share in the manuscripts, which 'comprise codices documents and other papers including the residue of the collection of manuscripts formed by the late Sir Thomas Phillipps', and that they have each paid £2250 to Haggie and Moir. 'The manuscripts are at the present time unclassified and it is apprehended that in order to carry into effect the trusts of this Deed much research and labour by academic experts in every branch of learning and others will be required in arranging indexing transcribing and identifying the same for the purpose of determining their academic and commercial value [...] The Settlors are desirous after such necessary research as aforesaid has from time to time been carried out of benefiting the Primary and Secondary Beneficiaries'. After a definition of terms, the deed describes how the trust will operate, giving the names of beneficiaries (all members of the signatories' families). It would take a legal and financial expert to explain certain aspects of this deed of settlement, but one surprising clause gives the Robinsons the right to 'destroy any of the manuscripts which upon such advice as they may deem proper shall appear to be valueless or not worthy of retention'. Reproduced at the end of the photostat are the signatures of the four parties and their witnesses. This item is part of the papers of Messrs. Philip and Lionel Robinson, regarding whom see the last chapter of the fifth volume ('The Dispersal of the Phillipps Library', 1960) of A. N. L. Munby's monumental 'Phillipps Studies'. In the final chapter of the book Munby describes the Robinsons' acquisition of the collection in 1946 and its subsequent disposal. Munby's account was published in 1960, the same year as the deed, and it makes no mention of it, nor of Haggie or Moir. Munby does state, however, that 'the house of William H. Robinson Ltd. closed its doors' in December 1956, and that in 'their retirement the brothers retained, in their new capacity as private owners, the residue of the Phillipps Collection, still extensive and of infinite variety. The routine commitments of commerce had allowed all too little time for the patient examination of many thousands of manuscripts and documents, which at a cursory view had seemed tobe of secondary importance, and a good deal of the brothers' newly found leisure has been devoted to winnowing the wheat from the chaff. The orderly segregation of what is valuable and the jettisoning of the worthless will occupy a good many years yet'.