The Huntington Library is located in San Marino, within the urban sprawl of greater Los Angeles. It is one of the finest humanities libraries in the world and holds the most significant collection of documents relating to the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos. 

On this website, Huntington documents quoted are prefixed HEH. Transcripts are produced by kind permission of the Huntington Library. The copyright of these transcripts lies with Andy Boddington, but this is waived under the copyleft conditions that govern this site unless otherwise stated. 

Further information on the Library, Galleries and Garden. 

The Stowe Documents

The Stowe collection includes papers from the Grenville, Temple, Nugent, Brydges and other families. The earliest documents date from about 1175 and the latest from 1919. In all there are around 350,000 documents. It is the largest and most important collection of documents relating to the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos worldwide. 

The major part of the collection was sold in 1921 by Lady Mary Morgan-Grenville, Baron Kinloss of Stowe and purchased by the Huntington Library through Frank Marcham and the Museum Bookshop in 1925. 

The collections are indexed on cards and in folders at the Huntington. The principal published source is: 

Guide to British Historical Manuscripts in the Huntington Library. Huntington Library 1982. 

The Stowe collection at the Huntington is a remarkable resource, not just for the history of the Temple-Grenvilles, their politics and their houses—but also for local history, especially for Hampshire, Buckinghamshire and their other estates.  

The following pages are based on my personal notes and indexes at the Huntington. They are not intended to be a comprehensive catalogue rather than an indication of the richness of the parts of the collection I have studied. 

• Brydges: about 15,800 documents relating to the Dukes of Chandos and Brydges family. 
• Temple: about 23,000 documents relating to the Temples of Stowe, largely before the marriage between Richard Temple of Stowe and Hester Grenville of Wotton in 1710. 
• Grenville: about 300,000 documents relating to the Grenvilles of Wotton, but more especially to the Temple-Grenvilles after 1720. 
• Nugent: about 1,100 documents relating to the Nugent family. 
• O'Conor: about 1,400 documents relating to Doctor Charles O'Conor, the controversial scholar and librarian at Stowe.
• ST Volumes.