Hamish Henderson Archive Trust - Appeal (with update)

The Hamish Henderson Archive Trust is looking to raise £2,000 to spend July/August 2011 making an initial inventory of the papers of Hamish Henderson, the Scottish poet, soldier, pacifist, political activist, songwriter and the leading folklorist of his generation.

Recipient of the Somerset Maugham Prize for Literature in 1949, and a songwriter of international standing, his songs have been acknowledged by such figures as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Nelson Mandela.

Hamish co-founded the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh in 1951, which has gone on to record 12,000 hours worth of oral tradition reflecting the lives and cultures of the Scottish people.

Hamish sadly died in 2002, leaving behind a large personal archive of letters, unpublished poems and notebooks from his field collecting. The papers have been valued at almost £100,000, but despite negotiations with a number of public bodies to have them acquired for the nation, they still remain with Hamish's family. As a result, the Hamish Henderson Archive Trust has been formed by a group of friends of the Henderson family to secure the archive's fate and make it publicly accessible.

This initial inventory is a vital step towards securing funding for both the purchase of the full archive in the near future, working in partnership with a national repository, as well as future research on its contents by academic institutions.

Please help secure the legacy of this important cultural figure whose contribution to Scottish life is long overdue full recognition.

To donate to the project, please visit:

http://www.sponsume.com/project/hamish-henderson-archive

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• hamish henderson
• school of scottish studies
• steve byrne
• malinky
• scotland glasgow edinburgh