Paston Letters

The Paston Letters are a collection of correspondences between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other important documents.

The large collection of letters and papers was acquired in 1735 from the executors of the estate of William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth, the last in the Paston line, by the antiquary Francis Blomefield. On Blomefield's death in 1752 they came into the possession of Thomas Martin of Palgrave. On his death in 1771 some letters passed into the hands of John Ives, while many others were purchased by John Worth, a chemist at Diss, whose executors sold them in 1774 to Sir John Fenn of East Dereham.

In 1787, John Fenn published a selection of the letters in two volumes, bringing general interest to the collection. In 1789, Fenn published two further volumes of letters. Before he died in 1794 he prepared a fifth volume for publication, which was posthumously published in 1823 by his nephew, William Frere. In 1787, Fenn presented the originals of his first two volumes to King George III, who knighted Fenn on 23 May 1787. Shortly thereafter, the manuscripts for all five volumes disappeared, casting doubt on the authenticity of the letters. In 1865 their authenticity was questioned by Herman Merivale in the Fortnightly Review, but James Gairdner countered that they were genuine in the same periodical. Within a year, Gairdner was proven right by the discovery of the originals of the fifth volume, together with other letters and papers, by Frere's son, Philip Frere, in his house at Dungate. Ten years later, the originals of Fenn's third and fourth volumes with ninety-five unpublished letters were found at Roydon Hall, Norfolk, the seat of George Frere. Finally the originals of the two remaining volumes were discovered in 1889 at Orwell Park, Ipswich, in the residence of Captain E.G. Pretyman. The last letters to be found were the letters presented to George III; they may have reached Orwell through Sir George Pretyman Tomline, the tutor and friend of William Pitt the Younger.

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