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| 1980.0075 [Papers of the Bright Family] |
| Date Range of Records: |
1511-1974 |
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The Bright Family Papers consists of personal, financial, commercial and legal documentation relating to the Bright and Meyler families, including deeds, indentures and wills; correspondence, letterbooks and extracts; journals, ledgers, cashbooks and summaries of accounts; estate plans and inventories; pedigrees, family trees, and copies of Parish registers; folios of artwork; photographs; and some supplementary printed material.
The earliest material in the collection consists of a will (1511) and two arbitration disputes (1532, 1592), the ‘feet of fine’ or court copies of two final concords (both in Latin, c.1610), and a number of indentures from the mid to late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.
The bulk of the collection dates from 1730-1840, and relates to the various commercial partnerships between the Bright and Meyler families and other merchants and traders in Jamaica and the West Indies. This material covers the management of plantations Meylersfield (also known as Cabaritta) and Garredu (Black Mount) and other Jamaican concerns that the Brights and Meylers were involved in. Specific documents and topics of interest include valuations, inventories and accounts relating to slaves, land and stock; detailed business accounts; correspondence describing daily life and business, including discussion of Tacky’s rebellion (1760), the Capture of St. Lucia (1778), fires (1780, 1782) and a hurricane (1780), governance, medicine and illness, and various plants and animals sent home to England.
The Jamaican correspondence includes significant holdings of letters between Henry Bright, Francis Bright, Richard Meyler, and Jeremiah Meyler and their various business partners, as well as very extensive correspondence from 1800-1830 between Lowbridge and Richard Bright and their Jamaican partners and representatives including David Duncomb, Benjamin Duncomb, William Savage, James Corne Pownall, John Shand, William Caldwell, and John Garnett.
Also well-represented is the management, sale, and purchase of English estates, particularly in the mid nineteenth century, including Ham Green, Welland Court, Flapgate, Abbots Leigh, and Brockbury. Correspondence and other documents relate to the settlement of tenants’ disputes, the collection and payment of rent and taxes, improvements and building work, and surveying and enclosure of land.
Correspondence and other documentation relating to family matters includes details of family marriages, deaths and inheritances, including extensive documentation relating to the inheritance dispute between Richard Bright and the Meyler family, and the genealogy of both families, as well as financial documents, accounts and correspondence regarding the estates of Henry Bright, Francis Bright, Allen Bright Sr., Benjamin Heywood Bright, Richard Bright, Lowbridge Bright, and of various other extended family. Other holdings relating to family and personal matters include love letters, letters of advice (particularly to Allen Bright Jr.), letters and accounts relating to medical issues, donations to charities, insurance, and other sundry payments and purchases. The collection also contains correspondence and other material relating to Henry Bright's time as Mayor of Bristol, to the activities of Gibbs, Bright & Co. in Australia (c.1870s-1900s) and family life in Victoria (c.1900s-1920s), to potential research interests for local historians such as an extended dispute over ministers in Castle Green (c.1720s), and extensive correspondence and details of purchases between Benjamin Heywood Bright and the bookseller Thomas Rodd the Younger (c.1820s-1840s).
The Bright Family Papers have been catalogued in stages since 1980. The initial arrangement was based on an analysis of the contents of each box as received at the Archives. The initial control numbers given to each box, file, folio, or loose item reflected the box it came from. Control numbers were made by combining symbols, for example, BFP1/L1F1/1 which refers to Bright Family Papers Box 1, Loose items Folder 1, Folio 1. Common symbols used were BFPn, referring to Bright Family Papers Box n; Ln, referring to Loose Item n; SIn, referring to Single Item n; Fn, referring to Folder n; or Bn, referring to Bundle n; where ‘n’ is the folio number within the folder or bundle.
This arrangement illustrates the order in which the collection was discovered and housed when it came to the Archives, but no longer reflects the box arrangement as subsequent conservation rehousing has more than doubled the number of boxes in the collection. These numbers have been retained as previous control numbers for each of the over 10,000 folios in the collection, but folders, bundles and folios have also been top numbered when entered into the Archives database.
As at 2015, the Archives database is not capable of displaying all 10,000 folio descriptions to the public. The list attached to the catalogue record consists of descriptions of folders and bundles but not of the folios within them. As the collection is fragile and large, browsing the collection is not possible. In light of this, the Archives has also attached an Excel spreadsheet which provides details of all folios in the collection. Researchers looking for specific persons, places or subjects are advised to search within this spreadsheet. Alternatively, you can contact the Archives at archives@archives.unimelb.edu.au and a Research Archivist will search the database for folios on your behalf. Please note that spellings in the listings have not been corrected by the Archivist and reflect original spellings, including the use of archaic or variant spellings, or may have been transcribed incorrectly. Researchers undertaking keyword searches are advised to consider using phonetic variants of names and places. |
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| 175 archives boxes, 20 over-sized items |
| Collection Category: |
Business, individuals |
| Access Conditions: |
Access: Open
Some records digitised and available online via Search Digitised Items at http://archives.unimelb.edu.au/ |
| Finding Aids: |
Yes listed ONLINE |
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