Museum to surrender collection

THE National English Literary Museum (Nelm) has had to give up its invaluable CronwrightSchreiner collection of documents after a court ruling.

The museum has had to surrender the collection to the grandson of the late Samuel Cron Cronwright, the estranged husband of renowned South African writer Olive Schreiner.

The fascinating collection includes letters by both Schreiner and Cronwright.

Notably, it includes letters between Schreiner and renowned British physician and sexologist Dr Henry Havelock Ellis.

It also includes Cronwright’s diaries, his account of Schreiner’s internment at Buffelskop, Cradock, and original family and other wonderful photographs.

Cape Town businessman and Cronwright heir Peter Cron Raine took Nelm to court in 2012 when it refused to give the collection to him.

At the time, Nelm’s council chair Michael Titlestad said in a newspaper article that museums had to try to preserve the country’s literary archives.

He said Cronwright had donated some of Schreiner’s most significant papers and books to the Cradock Public Library, which had passed them on to Nelm.

He warned at the time that the bulk of South African literary heritage had already been sold to American universities.

Titlestad said Raine had at the time already auctioned off some 20 books by Schreiner, Cronwright and Havelock Ellis.

In terms of the Grahamstown High Court order on Monday, Nelm agreed to deliver the collection in full to Raine as soon as reasonably possible.

Raine has agreed that Nelm could retain digital copies of the collection for exhibitions and research.