Richard Dowden Papers Descriptive List

vii

academics, and acquaintances. The correspondence is extensive, but only 1 or 2 items exist for each person in many cases. Correspondents include Thomas Osborne Davis, Daniel O’Connell MP, Father Theobald Mathew, sculptor John Hogan, artist Daniel Maclise, John Francis Maguire MP, William Wilde (father of writer Oscar Wilde), antiquarian John Windele, surgeon John Woodroffe, journalist Joseph O’Leary, Andrew O’Dwyer MP, Spring Rice (Lord Monteagle), William Maginn , the Duke of Wellington, Lord Morpeth, Sir Robert Peel and Charles Trevelyan, Lord and Lady Bandon and other Irish Peers (L/002 – L/144). MS. volume containing a report by William Cunningham of weather observations for each month from Jan 1845 to Dec 1848 (during the Great Famine), including mean temperature, rain in inches, wind, etc. Also, tables of figures giving mean temperatures, rain and prevailing winds, for each year from 1845 to 1848, plus an abstract of register of rain 1825 - 1844 and totals for each year, averages over 20 years, etc. The Richard Dowden collection is of major interest to the study of 19 th century Ireland, particularly government, politics, religion, social history, charitable activities and organisations, education, scholarship, science, literature and the arts, theatre, and women’s history . The collection documents the world of a liberal pro-Repeal Protestant of the merchant class in an era of huge political, social, economic, as well as intellectual and scientific, development. In politics we see Dowden, the Liberal club member, a supporter of Catholic emancipation and of Daniel O’Conne ll MP and the Repeal of the Act of Union campaign (U140/J/02/09). Other political material in the collection relates for example to public distress, suffrage, the tenant league, capital punishment, the Friends of Liberty, and the Friends of Thomas Davis, and we also find a number petitions to parliament from the citizens of Cork, such as, requesting a public health act for Ireland (U140/J/02/27). Dowden was unwavering in his support for repeal and reform, as evidenced by his refusal to sign a petition of loyalty during the turbulent year of 1848, stating in a letter that he '....could not sign the address to the Queen nor advocate its being signed...we have furnished a continual supply of mercenaries to the army and navy, because we has for centuries no more lucrative occupation for our people...'. He goes on to refer to barbarous penal laws, and absurd restrictions, misery and poverty in Ireland. (U140/J/02/28) In common with many of his co-religionists, and many Cork citizens, he was a strong supporter of the anti-slavery movement, and he used his position as Mayor of Cork in 1845 to welcome Frederick Douglass to the City (U140/L/029; U140/J/01/011); and he corresponded with a number of reformers such as Joseph Sturge (U140/L/113) and Richard Allen (U140/L/002). Of Dowden’s service as Mayor and Alderman with Cork Corporation, there is only a limited amount of detailed material, including; a rough notebook recording some Corporation activities (U140/A/008); a fragment of an account book in his position as Mayor recording amounts disbursed (U140/D/2); dozens of meeting notices and calling cards for elections; a summons issued as ‘ Mayor and Chief Magist rate’ to an eating house keeper and a circular letter to families left destitute following shootings by police at the ‘Battle of Ballinhassig ’ in 1845 (U140/J/02/02 and U140/K/3). Dowden used his position as Mayor to further the cause of social reform and temperance, which he and many of his educated contemporaries saw as a panacea for infectious diseases and many social ills (U140/K/3/139).

U140 Richard Dowden Papers Descriptive List

vii