Beschreibung:

Ireland--Douglas, Senator James G. His surviving archive comprising: OVER 220 LETTERS TO HIM, OTHER MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY AND POLITICAL AND OTHER ASSOCIATES (SOME COPIES); 160 OF HIS RETAINED COPIES; TOGETHER WITH MEMORANDA, TELEGRAMS, RECEIPTS, TYPED REPORTS, LISTS, COPIES OF CONTRACTS, LEGAL AGREEMENTS, MINUTES, AS WELL AS ASSORTED LEAFLETS OF SPEECHES, OFFPRINTS AND SOME OTHER PRINTED MATERIALS ETC, CHIEFLY 1920S AND 1930S, BUT A FEW EARLIER (1898, 1905 ETC) AND SOME LATER FROM THE 1950S AND 1960S (A FEW POSTHUMOUS, RELATING TO HIS LIFE AND POLITICAL CAREER), CHIEFLY PRESERVED IN BOX-FILES OR ALBUMS, SOME LOOSE, OCCASIONAL SMALL RUST-STAINS FROM PINS OR CLIPS, A FEW MARGINAL TEARS, SLIGHT BROWNING The archive of a key political player at the time of the establishment of the Irish Free State. The Irish senator, Quaker and businessman James Green Douglas (1887-1954) developed an early interest in politics, and assisted in the provision of relief during the Easter rising of 1916, when he developed an understanding of the aims of the executed leaders. He was instrumental in the setting up of the Irish White Cross shortly afterwards (the first funds had come from an American Quaker, Hollingsworth Wood, who had sent $5000 to assist victims of the Black and Tan outrages). In the early 1920s Douglas was the Cross's central administrative figure, and through it he met Michael Collins who in 1922 nominated him as a member of the committee set up to draft the free state constitution; later in the same year he was appointed chairman of the postal commission: both events are well recorded and documented in the present archive. In December 1922 he was elected to the first senate, where he was seen as an expert on constitutional law, and was its vice-chairman from 1922 to 1925. As such he played a key part in the legislative provisions for divorce, which aroused great controversy (also well represented here). He served again in the senate in 1938-43, and 1944-54. When De Valera's 1937 constitution was introduced Douglas's voice was a powerful persuasive to its need to recognise other churches in addition to the Roman Catholic church. Douglas was a keen supporter of international institutions and the rule of law, and became President of the League of Nations Society of Ireland. The archive comprises his retained drafts or copies of his own letters, correspondents including Michael Collins (at least 16, chiefly from the first half of 1922, including a number discussing his work on the draft of the new Irish Constitution, also the Irish White Cross (including a protest about the seizure of the Belfast branch's building and records by the Northern Ireland government), and his work as Chairman of the Postal Commission (as appointed by Collins); Hugh Kennedy [first Chief Justice of the Irish Free State] (several, including some from the late summer of 1922 discussing Kennedy's draft introduction to the proposed Constitution); President W.T. Cosgrave [Prime Minister of the Irish Free State] (several, including a long letter of 3 January 1929, complaining about being highly misrepresented by the Catholic Church over his Divorce Bill; another from 1925 about the divorce bills; a further letter of 18 September 1922, as Head of the Postal Commission, concerning the proposed postal strike); Baron Glenavy [Sir James Campbell former Lord Chief Justice of Ireland] (including 12 July 1927, joining a motion deploring the assassination of the Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins two days previously); Ernest Blythe TD (9 December 1922, declining to support the government in adopting reprisals against De Valera); the Postmaster General (e.g. 8 September 1922, concerning the proposed postal strike); "A.E." [George Russell] (including some also about the divorce controversy); the Irish Independent (e.g. 22 June 1922, about the Irish Constitution); a number written in the capacity as Treasurer of the White Cross, to correspondents in Europe and America, concernin