Papers of Sir Hubert Douglas Henderson, 1890-1952

Scope and Content

The collection of Hubert Douglas Henderson contains material on the Economic Advisory Council, the War Cabinet (including Committee on Reconstruction Problems), finance (including Bretton Woods), population statistics, International Economic Policy Study Group papers, Keynes, the Stamp Survey and various articles, lecture and correspondence by Henderson.

Administrative / Biographical History

Hubert Douglas Henderson (1890-1952) was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, Rugby School and Emmanuel College Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and economics. He acquired an interest in Liberal politics at Cambridge, which led him to be secretary and then president of the Cambridge Union (1912). During the war he was secretary of the Cotton Control Board in Lancashire but afterwards Henderson abandoned the Civil Service to be a fellow at Clare College, Cambridge, and a lecturer at the university (1919-23). He was part of the group organizing the first Liberal Summer Schools and in 1923 he was offered the editorship of The Nation & Athenæum, which he held for seven years. The same group also organized the inquiry leading to the Liberal Yellow book (Britain's Industrial Future, 1928), in which Henderson played a considerable part. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he was a member of several Chatham House research groups, in some of which Harrod also took part. In 1930-34 he was a member, then advisory secretary and joint secretary, of the Economic Advisory Council. In 1934 was elected to a research fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford (he was also appointed warden in 1951, but did not take it up). There, with Harrod and Meade, he founded the Oxford Economists' Research Group, which he also chaired (1936-38). He also helped to organize the newly founded Oxford Institute of Statistics. He was a member (chairperson from 1946) of the Royal Commission on Population (1944-49), for which Harrod produced written and oral evidence, and Drummond professor of political economy in Oxford from 1945. (Source: Oxford DNB)

Arrangement

By boxes as follows: 1-2. Economic Advisory Council and economic papers, memorandum; 3-4. War Cabinet; 5. Finance; 6. Commissions and committees; 7. Population statistics; 8. International Economic Policy Study Group papers; 9. Media documentation, 1921 - 1950; 10. Papers on Keynes; 11-12. Papers on Stamp Survey, 1939 - 1940; 13. Addresses, articles and lectures, 1932 – 1951; 14. Lectures, papers and related correspondence, 1935, 1940 – 1942 & 1943; 15-16. Articles, 1936 – 1951; 17. Lectures, reviews and articles, 1935 - 1951; 18-19. Lectures, 1946, 1947 - 1951; 20-21. Correspondence, 1911 - 1920, 1922 – 1930 and albums of cuttings from the Economist; 22. Correspondence, 1930 – 1939 and Henderson's stamp; 23. Correspondence, 1940 - 1951; 24. Correspondence and notes about biography; 25. Correspondence about knighthood, illness, wardenship and condolences to Faith Henderson.

Access Information

By prior appointment only. Application in writing (letter or email) to the Assistant Librarian (Archives). See Nuffield College Archives location page for more details.

Other Finding Aids

The handlist for the Henderson collection can be found [online] Link: https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/the-college/library/special-collection-and-archives/archive/

Custodial History

The Henderson papers were deposited by Lady Henderson in Nuffield College Library in 1952.

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