Index to Hand-list of Atholl Papers

The Atholl Papers are a very large archive of over 7,500 manuscripts & books donated to the Manx Museum (Manx National Heritage) in 1956 that cover the period from 1735 when the Dukes of Atholl inherited the Lordship of Man and onto 1828 when the British Government bought out their remaining rights. The following is an edited version of the 1950's hand list and description produced by Neil Mathieson in the Manx Museum.

The references to the individual documents are somewhat convoluted and are based on the labels and tags found with the bundles of documents as received from the Atholl archivist - they reflect the organisation of a larger archive from which the IoM related documents were drawn (hence many apparent gaps in the sequence) - those labelled AP_X came without any such tags or labels and were placed in a sequence possibly in the order received. As these references are now pencilled on the documents and used by the Museum staff to fetch them and as previous researchers over the last 60 years have used these references they are given here though in several cases it is apparent that some documents are misplaced and others could be better placed with other relevant documents.

The 2nd Duke inherited the title to the IoM in 1736, under him the Island rapidly became heavily involved in the 'Running Trade', on his death in 1764 his nephew, the 3rd Duke who had married his cousin, was heavily lent on by the British Government to sell the Island to the British Crown. The agreement of the 3rd Duke was to sell the Regalities of the Island (hence the Revestment Act of 1765) but to keep the Manorial Rights - the 3rd Duke died, under unfortunate circumstances, in 1774 and was succeeded by his son, the 4th Duke who began a ceaseless campaign to obtain a better settlement than that forced upon his father, as well as to regain certain Manorial rights that he claimed had been wrongly usurped. His actions led to near 50 years of disputes with the Keys, the Parliamentary Commission on Enquiry of 1792, his appointment in 1793 as Governor-in-Chief and ultimately to the British Government buying out his Manorial rights in 1828 - he died in 1830.

There are some 255 bundles - the notes here are my own brief description of the majority of the documents in the bundle, but many bundles contain some documents that do not fall within such a description.