Walmsley (Anne) Archive

Scope and Content

Consists of the personal archive of Anne Walmsley including material relating to talks, articles and publications, correspondence, diaries and scrapbooks, material relating to her University work and her qualifications and degrees.

Administrative / Biographical History

A specialist in Caribbean art and literature, Anne Walmsley is a British editor, scholar, critic and author. Anne started her career in the late 1950s when she worked as a secretary for Faber and Faber. Following this, she spent three years as a teacher at Westwood High School in Jamaica. When she returned to the UK, she worked for a time with BBC Schools television service.
Her career with Longman began in 1967, where she was employed as their first editor on Caribbean focused writing. In 1968, The Sun's Eye was published which marked her first compilation of Caribbean literature. Anne Walmsley spent ten years in this role, before moving to Nairobi as publishing editor for Longman Kenya. She later returned to the U.K. to undertake a Master's in African Studies at the University of Sussex.
Anne Walmsley participated in the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM), founded in 1966 by Kamau Braithwaite, John La Rose and Andrew Salkey. In 1985 she was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship to research CAM and in 1992 she was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Kent for her thesis on this, which was also published as a book entitled The Caribbean Artists Movement: A Literary and Cultural History, 1966-1971.
Anne Walmsley has contributed to a range of journals, literary magazines, exhibition catalogues and anthologies. The archive at Newcastle University Special Collections holds a range of material including letters and reports from her time at Longman's, her scrapbook from teaching at Westwood, research on CAM, and research on a range of Caribbean artists.

Access Information

Open with some restrictions: data protection researcher interview may be required. Special Collections staff will provide researchers with further details of these restrictions.

Archivist's Note

This catalogue was created by Rachel Hawkes, Literary Archivist at Newcastle University Special Collections in 2018.

Separated Material

The Anne Walmsley Archive (papers and correspondence with leading West Indian writers) is held by the University of Sussex Special Collections.

Accruals

Further accruals to this archive are expected.

Related Material

Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives also hold the Walmsley (Anne) Collection consisting of printed material from Anne's personal library.

Geographical Names