Guide to the Papers of Edward Jacomb (as filmed by the AJCP), 01 November 1755-1958

Summary

Collection number:

M2338

Creator:

Jacomb, Edward

Extent:

13 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the Senate House Library, University of London and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Press cuttings from London newspapers re. the proposed colonial tour, 1905, Senate House Library, University of London. (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-903774413)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

Autobiography and miscellaneous papers relate to Jacomb's early life in England and his years in Australia and the New Hebrides. The main correspondent is R.J. Fletcher of Makatea.

Biographical / Historical:

Edward Jacomb (1881 - 1960) was born into a prosperous middle class family. After Oxford, he read for the bar and also studied French law in Paris. He failed to secure a post in the Egyptian Judicial Service, but after a trip to a family property in Australia saw how qualified he was to serve in a legal capacity in the newly formed Anglo - French condominium of New Hebrides. After service in the First World War he returned to the New Hebrides in 1919 but finallyleft the Pacific area in 1920 and returned to England to qualify as a doctor.

He attended medical schools in Birmingham and Bristol University in the early twenties, finally securing his LMSSA registration on 27 June 1932 while working at Charing Cross Hospital. From 1935-1939 he was resident in Jersy, returning to London in 1941. During the War he was employed as a temporary phyician and medical officer at Runwell Mental Hospital in Essex and Kent County Mental Hospital in Maidstone. According to the 1953 Medical Directory he finally retired as a doctor in 1953 and he died in 1960.

While in the New Hebrides Jacomb kept diaries, which on his death he bequeathed to London University on the proviso they were closed for fifty years. In 1956 he wrote a volume of family and personal biography which his literary executor also deposited at London University. The nine typescript volumes of this history comprise this collection.

Jacomb initially entitled his biographical manuscript Successful Failure , but at a later date crossed this out and retitled it Family Portrait. However in some places it is still called Successful Failure . He used not only his own diaries, but also verbatim extracts from his mothers diaries, family letters and other letters to himself from settlers in the New Hebrides.

Many of these family letters were from his brother Charles Ernest Jacomb (b. 1888) who at one time ran the family fruit farm at Mildura. Charles Jacomb was the author of Gods own country: an appreciation of Australia, London Max Goshen, 1914 and Torment: a study in patriotism, London, Andrew Melrose, 1920. In the first chapter of Torment…Charles Jacomb mentions his life in the New Hebrides where he and his wife briefly joined Edward in his legal partnership.

Edward Jacomb also wrote two books on his service in the New Hebrides: France and England in the New Hebrides: the Anglo-French Condominium. Melb. George Robertson, 1914 and The future of the Kanaka, London, P.S. King and Son, 1919. Both provide essential background to Family Portrait.

Also quoted in Family Portrait are letters to Jacomb from R.J. Fletcher, employed by Zeither and Hagen at Ringdove Bay, New Hebrides. Other letters from Fletcher to Bohun Lynch were published as Isles of Illusion by Asterisk, London, Constable, 1923.

Related

Existence and Location of Copies:

The original AJCP microfilm of the records filmed from this collection is available at the National Library of Australia [https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2298969] as well as other institutions holding AJCP microfilm.

Existence and Location of Originals:

Senate House Library, University of London. Malet Street, London, England.

For more information see Edward Jacomb diaries and papers (http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/Details/archive/110017052).

Conditions Governing Access:

Available for access.

Conditions Governing Use:

Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the Senate House Library, University of London.

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the Senate House Library, University of London and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Press cuttings from London newspapers re. the proposed colonial tour, 1905, Senate House Library, University of London. (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-903774413)

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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