Priceless letters now at the Elgar Birthplace Museum
Over 250 priceless letters and postcards written by Edward Elgar to Miss Martina Hyde have been donated to the Elgar Birthplace Museum.
The letters and postcards which are in excellent condition are of great historical significance and the fascinating information they contain will help visitors and researchers better understand the Elgar story. The Museum is particularly pleased to receive this material as it is extremely rare for a collection of letters of this number to pass from a private collection into a public museum thereby safeguarding them for future generations to enjoy.
The letters and postcards had been in the private possession of the family of Mr A T (Bertie) Shaw, founder of the Elgar Society, who donated them to the Museum. The Museum will display a selection of the letters in the new temporary display cabinets in 2012.
Sue Fairchild Documentation Officer at the Museum said
“I am thrilled that these letters and postcards are now in the Museum’s collection. It is obvious that the Shaw family cherished them for many years as they are in excellent condition and look just as they would have done when Elgar was writing them. It is to the credit of the Shaw family that future researches will have this fantastic resource available to them.”
