MS 681

Reference code

MS 681

Title

Moulton-Barrett family papers

Level

Sub-fonds

Other Number

For reference codes used in the previous arrangement of 2015, see Archival history.

Administrative / Biographical history

The Moulton-Barrett archive contains the papers, images and objects of a number of members and branches of this large and complex family. They had been passed down a number of generations, finally resting with Edward Richard Moulton-Barrett, and Nadia Moulton-Barrett - the main donors of the archive. Specific biographical histories for members of the extended family have been included at series or sub-series levels.

Date

1659-2016

Extent & medium

125 files and 285 items

Content description

The Moulton-Barrett family papers comprise the surviving archive of the Barrett and Moulton-Barrett family, which were accumulated, worked on and passed down through generations of various branches of the family, ending with the donor of most of the papers - Edward Richard Moulton-Barrett and the donor of most of the pictures - Nadia Moulton-Barrett. Specific biographical histories for members of the family whose papers are present, will be found at series or sub-series level.

Chiefly, the papers tell a part of the story of the Barrett family of Jamaica, spanning nearly 250 years. The Barretts settled in Jamaica in the 17th century, acquiring large estates in the island’s north, cultivating cocoa, tobacco, ginger, and indigo. By the 18th century, these estates were increasingly focused on sugar production, which depended heavily on the forced labour of enslaved Africans. The papers provide some detail of how the Barretts as immigrant proprietors of land, generated considerable wealth and how that financed high living, which enabled the Barretts to enter respectable English society in the nineteenth century. An important map drawn in the 1870s shows the location of the Barrett estates at that date (MS 681 18 07 07).

A large part of the papers focus on Edward Moulton-Barrett, who assumed control of his grandfather’s Jamaica estates in 1806 at the age of 21. He and his wife Mary later purchased Hope End, a property in Herefordshire where they raised a large family, followed (after Mary's death) by a home on Wimpole Street in London. They include Edward Moulton-Barrett’s business papers and personal papers and also those of a number of Edward and Mary’s children.

The papers offer a rich and wide-ranging record of this complex family’s life and legacy. They shed much light on the family’s relationships, intermarriage and connectedness to other settler families in Jamaica and also in England where the produce of their estates was sold for high profits through their agents. The papers document the management of the Jamaican estates, family disputes, the impact of the decline of the sugar industry and the abolition of slavery in 1833. Then, changing moral attitudes, economic forces and costly and length litigation eroded those fortunes until the family’s estates were sold off one by one in the 1870s until the last was sold in 1949. Some documents give glimpses into the lives and voices of formerly enslaved people, several of whom later became part of the wider Barrett family.

The archive also contains hundreds of letters, legal and financial documents, artwork, photographs, and manuscripts, revealing the personal, business, creative, and social worlds of several generations of the family. Edward and Mary’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth became one of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era and in whom the family took great pride. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s early life and work are especially well represented, offering valuable material for researchers.

Provenance

The papers illustrate the care and interest the Moulton-Barrett family took in their complex family history in England and Jamaica and also, their endeavours to try to ensure that family papers and art were tracked as they were passed on from a number of branches of the family through probate and estate administration.

As the papers in the archive were passed down in the Moulton-Barrett family to descendants, they lost their original order, were merged and re-ordered. Some papers of earlier generations have been incorporated into papers of later generations, making it very difficult to disentangle provenance or original order.

The archive in Edward Richard Moulton-Barrett’s ownership was first arranged in the 1960s by a non-archivist to support the publication of selected materials. This process brought together papers from several members and branches of the Barrett family into a single chronological sequence, which had the effect of blending distinct provenances and original contexts. When the papers were later donated to Eton College Library, a further catalogue was prepared around 2015, largely reflecting this earlier arrangement. The current project has sought to build on those foundations by re-examining the papers with close attention to provenance and archival structure.

While restoring the original order has not been fully possible, partial restoration of provenance has been achieved, recovering some of the context that had been lost. Where provenance is evident, this has been noted at the appropriate level.

Previous arrangement of c.2015 - former references:

MS 681 01: Moulton-Barrett family papers
MS 681 01 01: Papers of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and her siblings ‘EBB’
MS 681 01 01 01: Letters
MS 681 01 01 02: Manuscripts
MS 681 01 01 03: Visual material
MS 681 01 01 04: Related material

MS 681 01 02 Papers relating to Pen Barrett Browning’s Estate, Besier’s play ‘The Barrett’s of Wimpole Street’ and other material ‘Misc. Collections’

MS 681 01 03 Papers of the wider family Box 1 (1772-1838), Box 2 (1838-1851) Box 3 (1851-1942) - [Folio size letters and documents]
Box 4 ‘St Winifreds’: papers of George Goodin Barrett

MS 681 01 04 Papers of Altham Leonard Moulton-Barrett

MS 681 01 05 Papers of Jose Moulton Barrett

MS 681 01 06 Papers of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett (1916-[1992])

MS 681 01 07 Family papers: Hope End Sale catalogue
MS 681 02: Papers relating to the Jamaican estates of the Moulton-Barrett Family:
MS 681 02 01: Box 1 (1774-1841) ‘Q1 1774-1841’ [Quarto size letters and documents]
MS 681 02 02: Box 2 (1841-1875) ‘Q2 1841-1875’ [Quarto size letters and documents]
MS 681 02 03: Box 3 (1875-1927) ‘Q3 1875-1927’ and N[o].D[ate] [Quarto size letters and documents]

MS 681 03: Notebooks belonging to members of the Moulton- Barrett family

MS 681 04: Likenesses of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and members of the Moulton-Barrett family
MS 681 04 01: Likenesses of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
MS 681 04 02: Other members of the Moulton-Barrett family
MS 681 04 02 01: Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett
MS 681 04 02 02: Mary Moulton-Barrett
MS 681 04 02 03: Henrietta Barrett
MS 681 04 02 04: Arabella Barrett
MS 681 04 02 05: Alfred Price Barrett Moulton-Barrett
MS 681 04 02 06: The family as a whole
MS 681 04 02 07: Distant and unidentified relatives
MS 681 04 03: Hope End

MS 681 05: Sketchbooks and scrapbooks kept by members of the Moulton- Barrett family

MS 681 06: Artefacts that belonged to either Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Robert Browning or the collective Moulton-Barrett family

MS 681 07: Printed material about Jamaica from Edward R. Moulton-Barrett's library

Arrangement

The papers were originally arranged by several generations of the Moulton-Barrett family who had inherited them. In the 1960s, the bulk of the papers were sorted into an over-arching single chronological arrangement by Philip Kelley when he worked on them in London. The ‘Jamaica Papers’ were then sorted into largely two chronological sequences by letter size – folio and quarto. Although this system was developed for editorial rather than archival purposes, it provided an effective working arrangement to support transcription and publication in his multi-volume work The Brownings’ Correspondence Vols. 1-31, 1809-1865 (1984-2025 and on-going) - referred to throughout this catalogue as BC. Each document published or referenced in BC has been given either a Letter number or a ‘Supporting Document’ (SD) number, written on each relevant item in the archive. These Letter numbers or SD numbers also link to the online edition of The Brownings’ Correspondence www.browningscorrespondence.com – where researchers can consult the full transcriptions of most of the original letters and supporting documents held across several libraries and also family archives.

After the papers were transferred to Eton College in 1993, they were catalogued in 2015, largely following Philip Kelley’s working arrangement. Between 2024 and 2025, the papers were re-examined and re-catalogued to provide a comprehensive archival structure that reflects their provenance and original context. The Jamaica Papers (the quarto and folio series of Barrett family papers) were brought together into a single chronological sequence, and the overall arrangement expanded into clearer series to enhance contextual understanding and access for researchers.

Former catalogue reference codes are also provided at the appropriate level.

The Moulton- Barrett family papers have been re-arranged into 27 series:

01 Papers and portraits of Edward Barrett of Cinnamon Hill, Jamaica
02 Papers of Judith Goodin Barrett
03 Papers of Elizabeth Barrett Moulton
04 Papers and portraits of Edward Moulton-Barrett
05 Papers and portraits of Mary Moulton-Barrett
06 Papers and portraits of Elizabeth (Ba) Moulton-Barrett
07 Papers and portraits of Edward (Bro) Barrett Moulton-Barrett
08 Papers and portraits of Henrietta (Addles) Moulton-Barrett
09 Papers of Samuel (Sam) Moulton-Barrett
10 Papers and portraits of Arabella (Bell) Moulton-Barrett
11 Papers of Charles John (Storm) Moulton-Barrett
12 Papers of George (Georgie) Goodin Moulton-Barrett
13 Papers and portraits of Henry (Harry) Moulton-Barrett and his wife Amelia (née Holland)
14 Papers and portrait of Septimus (Sette/Seppy) Moulton-Barrett
15 Papers and portraits of Octavius (Occy) Butler Barrett Moulton-Barrett, his second wife Maria Elizabeth (née Woodifield) and their descendants
16 Papers and portraits of Alfred Price (Daisy) Moulton-Barrett
17 Papers and portraits of Georgiana Elizabeth (Lizzie) Moulton-Barrett (née Barrett)
18 Papers and portraits of the wider Barrett, Waite and Williams families
19 Papers of Edward Alfred (Ted) Moulton-Barrett) and his second wife Kate Josephine (Jose) née Howson
20 Papers of Edward Francis (Teddy) Moulton-Barrett
21 Papers of Edward Richard Moulton-Barrett
22 Associated papers of the Moulton-Barrett family
23 Portraits, paintings and drawings of the wider Moulton-Barrett family
24 Images of Moulton-Barrett properties in England and Jamaica
25 Personal items or objects that belonged to either Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Robert Browning or the wider Moulton-Barrett family and passed down in the family
26 Finding aid: Philip Kelley’s card index to letters and supporting documents in the Moulton-Barrett family papers and Barrett family tree
27 Printed material relating to Jamaica which belonged to the Moulton-Barrett family

Associated material

MS 682 Robert and Elizabeth Browning Collection held by Eton College Library.

Finding aids

A card index catalogue of the Moulton-Barrett family papers was compiled by Philip Kelley, for publication of The Brownings’ Correspondence (1984-2025). It has been arranged in four parts: in chronological order; letters or documents by sender; letters or documents by recipient; and other papers of the wider family, named ‘Collections’. The card index has been included as an item in the archive - MS 681 27 01.

Two recently updated Barrett family trees have been added to the archive to facilitate understanding of the complexities of the family and its branches.

Publication note

The following publications have made direct transcriptions or references to items in the Moulton-Barrett family papers:

Jeanette Marks: The family of the Barrett - a colonial romance (1939).

A large proportion of the papers in the archive have been transcribed, published or cited in Kelley, Hudson et al.: The Brownings’ Correspondence (BC) Vols. 1-31, 1809-1865 (1984-2025 and on-going), and these can be matched to the originals by either a Letter number or a ‘Supporting Document’ (SD) number. They are also available online - The Brownings’ Correspondence www.browningscorrespondence.com - where researchers can read the full transcriptions of most of the originals held in a number of libraries and also family archives.

R A Barrett: The Barretts of Jamaica – the family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2000).