The Georgian Papers Programme is a ten-year interdisciplinary project to digitise, conserve, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and disseminate 425,000 pages or 65,000 items in the Royal Archives and Royal Library relating to the Georgian period, 1714-1837.

The publication schedule for the Georgian Papers Programme indicates when we hope that high-quality images of the documents can be accessed online, and these will be accompanied with cataloguing to support search enquiries. Subsequent enrichment of metadata will make possible more sophisticated searching.

A distinctive feature of the Georgian Papers Programme, however, which marks it out from some other well-known digitization projects, is that digitization, cataloguing and metadata creation are happening simultaneously, with advanced metadata creation dependent on progress in the other two processes. A further caveat is that there will inevitably be unforeseen issues, such as documents in poor condition needing conservation work, copyright concerns, or any one of a number of potential interruptions to the workflow.

We will aim to facilitate the research of members of the King’s Friends by regularly sharing with them the best available information we have as to the future publication schedule, and believe this to be one of the key benefits of engaging as part of the King’s Friends. Given the provisional nature of this information, we would however ask Friends not to distribute this information more widely without confirming with the academic director that the Programme is happy for this to be done. We make available here a high-level list for the programme as a whole. If you have specific questions about individual items, or would like to ask about the possibility of receiving advance access for something related to your research, please contact the Academic Director.

Phase 5 of the Georgian Papers document release duly took place early in 2019. It is now fully accessible on the RCT Georgian Papers website, Georgian Papers Online. As announced in the last Friends newsletter, this release included the following:

  • George IV’s Calendar as Prince of Wales, dating from 1766-1803
  • George IV’s financial papers and account books
  • GIV’s bills relating to the purchases of prints and enamels
  • GIV’s Private Papers (GEO/ADD/3) including correspondence with Mary Hamilton
  • Correspondence with members of the House of Prussia
  • GEO/ADD/35 – Military Papers

Phase 6 of the release has also been given a soft launch, meaning that the documents involved are now accessible, although no public announcement to that effect has been made. This bundle consists of over 90 Georgian inventories, most of which were stored at York House and were recently transferred to the Royal Archives, totaling in all some 21,700 pages. With this addition the number of pages now available on Georgian Papers Online, taking our total to nearly 125,000 pages.

This collection includes inventories of works of art, furniture and furnishings, arms and armour, clocks, porcelain, plate, etc., some relating to specific royal residences and estates, dating from the Georgian period. It includes some typescript copies and a number have 20th-century annotations.

Following  a broader review of the provisional delivery schedules we can make available provisional delivery schedules for the medium-term future of the Programme.

It must be emphasised that this schedule is provisional, but at the moment we envisage the following programme of releases:

Phase 7, September 2019:

  • Papers of William Henry, duke of Gloucester (1 box)
  • Papers of Edward, duke of York (4 boxes)
  • 4 boxes of George III official papers
  • George III, private papers (4 boxes)
  • 4 boxes of George IV calendar as prince, regent and king
  • Financial papers of George III (15 boxes)
  • 3 boxes of George IV bills
  • George IV private papers (4 boxes)
  • Oriental letters of George III and IV (40 items)

Phase 8, January 2020:

  • 3 boxes of George III official papers
  • 3 boxes of George IV calendar
  • Georgian medical records – Princess Mary’s letters to Prince Regent (6 boxes)
  • Papers of Princess Mary (3 boxes)
  • Papers re Charlotte Princess of Wales (9 boxes)
  • 3 boxes of bills of George IV

Phase 9, April 2020:

  • Papers of Henry, duke of Cumberland (2 boxes)
  • 3 boxes of George III official papers
  • 3 boxes of George IV calendar
  • Correspondence of George III & IV with foreign royal families (4 boxes)
  • Papers of Edward, duke of Kent (29 boxes)
  • Papers of Princess Sophia (2 boxes)

Together, these three phases will add another 55,000 pages of documents to the published collection. This is a demanding schedule. In order to make it possible, a decision has been taken to adopt a less ambitious approach to the cataloguing of the correspondence than was implemented in our first releases.  The private paper of George III and George IV will be catalogued as before, given their diverse content and the fact that these papers were not published in the previously available print editions.  Otherwise, our new policy is not to attempt to capture a detailed account of the contents in our cataloguing, instead concentrating on detailing the writers and recipients of letters and the place of composition. This will enable us to bring documents to the online platform much more quickly than would otherwise be possible.