Oliver Lodge - Historical Records

Historical Records

Sir Oliver Lodge's letters and papers were divided after his death. Some were deposited at the University of Birmingham and University of Liverpool and others at the Society for Psychical Research and the University College London. Lodge was long-lived and a prolific letter writer and other letters of his survive in the personal papers of other individuals and several other universities and other institutions. Among the known collections of his papers are the following:

• The University of Birmingham Special Collections holds over 2000 items of Sir Oliver's correspondence relating to family, co-workers at Birmingham and Liverpool Universities and also from numerous religious, political and literary figures. The collection also includes a number of Lodge's diaries, photographs and newscuttings relating to his scientific research and scripts of his published work. There are also an additional 212 letters of Sir Oliver Lodge which have been acquired over the years (1881–1939).

• The University of Liverpool holds some notebooks and letters of Oliver Lodge and also has a laboratory named after him, the main administrative centre of the Physics Department where the majority of lecturers and researchers have their offices.

• University College London Special Collections hold 1991 items of Sir Oliver Lodge's correspondence between 1871 and 1938.

• The Society for Psychical Research holds 2710 letters written to Oliver Lodge.

• Devon Record Office holds Lodge's letters to Sir Thomas Acland (1907–1908).

• The University of Glasgow Library holds Sir Oliver's letters to William Macneile Dixon (1900–1938).

• The University of St Andrews has twenty-three letters from Sir Oliver to Wilfred Ward (1896–1908).

• Trinity College Dublin is custodian of Lodge's correspondence with John Joly.

• Imperial College, London Archives hold nineteen letters Lodge wrote to his fellow scientist, Silvanus Thompson.

• The London Science Museum holds an early notebook of Oliver Lodge's dated 1880, correspondence dating from 1894–1913 and a paper on atomic theory.