Correspondence of Mairet, McLaughlin, Welton, and associated documents

Archive reference: MAI

This small but fascinating and rich collection of correspondence offers new insight into the ideas of Philip Mairet and others involved with Christian socialism during the 1950s.

The collection contains letters from Mairet to Tom Heron and others, from French psychologist Hubert Benoit to Philip Mairet, letters to Maurice Reckitt, files concerning the St Anne's Society (Soho), and material from Violet Welton. Most materials date from the 1950s to 1970s.

People and organisations mentioned include the Chandos Group, T.S. Eliot, Dimitrije Mitrinović, W.T. Symons, Joseph Dalby, Neil Montgomery, V.A. Demant, Teilhard de Chardin, Simone Weil, S.T. Coleridge, E.F. Schumacher, and Dorothy Sayers. Topics covered include Christian spirituality, science and religion, poetry, education of young people in Europe, and croquet.

Note that some letters are damaged and must be handled with care; a few are restricted under the Data Protection Act.

Related collections in Special Collections include the Peart-Binns Christian Socialist Archive and the Mitrinovic/New Atlantis collections.