The free exhibition, Under Covers: Documenting Spies, examines the art of espionage from Biblical times to the Cold War era.

It draws on personal archives, printed books, official publicity material, popular journals and specialist photographs and maps, mostly from the University Library's own collections, to illustrate a few of the ways in which spies have been documented through the centuries.

University Librarian Anne Jarvis said "Under Covers brings together an astonishing variety of different kinds of material, all throwing light on the business of uncovering - and keeping - secrets. The University Library is pleased to be able to be uncovering some documentary evidence of these secrets in this exhibition."

Exhibits range from a 12th-century manuscript recounting the story of King Alfred the Great entering a Danish camp disguised as a harpist to a Soviet-era map of East Anglia.

John Ker's 18th-century 'licence to spy', granted by Queen Anne, shows that the underworld of spies was well-established long before James Bond's licence to kill.

Other highlights include papers used by a Parliamentary Committee investigating the Atterbury Plot of the 1720s, a telegraph from the MI6 chief of the day confirming news of Rasputin's murder, and letters to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin from Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill, only declassified in 2007.

Incensed at being denied access to intercepted Japanese telegrams already seen by more junior personnel, Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to Prime Minister Baldwin on February 5, 1925:

"How can I conduct the controversies on which the management of our finances depends, unless at least I have the same knowledge of secret state affairs freely accessible to the officials of the Admiralty? The words "monstrous" and "intolerable" leap readily to mind."

A 1985 Soviet map of East Anglia shows English towns and cities in Cyrillic script. Maps of this sort were produced by the Soviet military for more than 50 years before, during, and after the Cold War. Classified as secret, these maps were unknown outside the Soviet military machine until the break-up of the USSR - when they became available on the open market.

The Atterbury Plot papers from the personal archive of Sir Robert Walpole are among the jewels of the exhibition. The plot aimed to restore the Stuart monarchy in Britain between the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. One of these is a deposition of William Squire concerning the arrest of Christopher Layer on September 18, 1722. Layer was later hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn for his part in the plot.

Twentieth-century material includes a copy of Compton MacKenzie's book Greek Memories that belonged to MI5 Deputy-Director Eric Holt-Wilson. The book resulted in MacKenzie being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act after he gave details of his time as MI6 station chief in the Eastern Mediterranean. Holt-Wilson's copy shows the spy chief's own crossings-out of offending passages.

An Allied escape map of the German-Swiss frontier, a bogus map of the
D-Day target area (accurate except for meaningless place names), and detailed dossiers of information gathered by the Nazis for their planned invasion of Britain, form part of the examination of espionage in the Second World War.

The Cambridge Spies also feature with, among other items, student record cards for Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and John Cairncross, and a 1933 copy of The Granta magazine with a mock interview with Donald Maclean which reveals his ability to take on different personae.

Intelligence historian Dr Nicholas Hiley, who has lent rare material from his own collections for inclusion in the display, said: "A library might seem a strange place for an exhibition of secret service, given its association with guns, fast cars, and high-tech gadgetry."

"But the one thing that both espionage and counter-espionage have depended upon for centuries is paper - for agent reports, ciphers and codes; for maps and plans; for reports on suspects and advice to government; and for the hundreds of thousands of files on which secret service depends. Paper has also been the basis of the spy novels, memoirs, and histories which have revealed that secret world to a wider public. In fact, libraries and archives are the best place from which to survey the long history of spies and spying."

Under Covers: Documenting Spies runs from January 19 to July 3, 2010. Entry to the exhibition is free. Opening times are Monday-Friday, 9am-6pm, Saturday 9am-4.30pm, Sunday closed.

The collection includes the war diaries Sassoon kept on the Western Front and in Palestine between 1915 and 1918, together with notebooks ranging from records of his schoolboy cricket scores to post-war journals tracing his turbulent personal life and the progress of his literary career. Sassoon’s childhood and wartime experiences profoundly shaped the development of his writing life, and the archive also contains drafts of his classic autobiographical trilogy The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried’s Journey.

When the Archive came on the market last year, Cambridge University Library was immediately identified as the most suitable home for the collection. Sassoon was an undergraduate at the University and later became an Honorary Fellow of Clare College, and the University Library has for many years been a leading institution in the preservation of his autograph manuscripts and letters. The combination of the Library’s extensive existing Sassoon holdings and the new material has created the world’s pre-eminent resource for the study of Sassoon’s life and works.

University Librarian Anne Jarvis said: 'We are delighted to have secured the future of the Sassoon archive, and to be able to make these extraordinary documents available in the University Library. This outcome is a source of both satisfaction and excitement to all those who have worked so hard to make it possible.'

The purchase has been made possible by generous funding from charitable institutions, grant-awarding bodies, and members of the general public.  The National Heritage Memorial Fund offered a grant of £550,000 and other substantial grants have been made by The Monument Trust, the J. P. Getty Jr Trust and Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, augmented by valuable support from bodies such as the Friends of the National Libraries, the B. H. Breslauer Foundation, the John Murray Charitable Trust, Clare College Cambridge, and the Library’s own Friends organisation. Many private individuals, convinced that the Archive should remain intact and accessible in the United Kingdom, contributed sums ranging from a few pounds to a  thousands of pounds.

The Library’s success in meeting its fundraising challenge has been widely welcomed. Author Sebastian Faulks, whose acclaimed novel Birdsong revolves around soldiers’ experience of the First World War and the memory of succeeding generations, said ‘This is a major coup for Cambridge University Library, and the papers will be of huge benefit to scholars both of literature and of history.’

Poet Sir Andrew Motion commented ‘The Sassoon Archive that has been acquired by the University Library is of the greatest importance, nationally and internationally. As a memoirist and as a poet, Sassoon occupies a unique place in the history of writing in English – someone who combines writerly, political and social significance to an exceptional degree. Their purchase is wonderful news.’

The Archive will now be conserved, sorted and catalogued by the University Library’s professional staff. In July 2010 a major display of the Library’s Sassoon collections will open in its Exhibition Centre, bringing together documents from the newly-acquired Archive and a selection of the Library’s other Sassoon treasures.  Exhibitions Officer and literary manuscripts specialist John Wells said of the war diaries: ‘Everyone who sees these documents is thrilled by the vital immediacy and poignancy of the meaning they convey. We can hardly wait to put them on show to the public next year.’

University staff and students, people from the wider Cambridge community and senior academics from around the world all took part in the "Letters To The Future" project by writing to their opposite numbers 100 years from now.

Their messages, which touch on subjects ranging from climate change and global recession to the progress of the current series of the X Factor, were sealed and stored on Thursday, November 19th in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen.

The University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, added the 800th and final letter before the University's messenger service then took eight boxes by bicycle to the University Library, where they will remain unopened for a century.

Each author has also been given a certificate to pass down to future generations. In 2109, anyone in possession of a certificate will be able to take it to the Library and retrieve a message from their ancestor.

Together, the letters should provide a fascinating snapshot of life in Cambridge, and indeed the world, in 2009. The writers include leading academics, among them the heads of both Harvard and Oxford, as well as hundreds of schoolchildren.

Each message was personal and confidential, but many of those taking part were happy to discuss the broad themes they wrote about. Readers in 100 years' time will find out about topics as diverse as the war in Afghanistan, the credit crunch, iPods, or, in the case of one young correspondent, "rabbits with floppy ears".

Many of the authors reflected on just what condition the world may be in by then. "Our current targets and strategies for reducing carbon emissions are based on predictions of the likely effects on our climate by 2080," one University staff member said. "It will be interesting to see if the reader of my letter in 2109 feels that our predictions were correct and that our efforts were sufficient and urgent enough to avoid the worst effects of catastrophic global damage."

A year 7 student wrote similarly about her concerns for the environment, adding that she hoped "that there would still be some polar bears left in a hundred years' time."

Other writers told their future readers about the crazes and fashions of early 21st-century Britain. "I wrote about how we are living in a time of reality TV and celebrity," said one. "People use shows like Big Brother and X Factor as a platform for fame and fortune."

Another posed the question: "Will people in 100 years' time know about, or care about, Twitter and blogging? If not, what will have replaced it?"

In total, the 800 correspondents represent 32 different countries on six continents. They included 51 university alumni, 137 members of the University and College staff, 105 students, 82 people from other universities, 326 schoolchildren and 99 other members of the public.

Members of the 11th/9th Beaver Scout Colony from Cambridge, some of whom are as young as six, might even stand a chance of still being around when the letters are opened. If so, they may well find themselves reflecting on their childhood hobbies, what ever happened to Super Mario, and why on earth making up the names of the letters' recipients seemed like such a funny idea at the time.

Geoff Morris, Head of the 800th Anniversary Year celebrations at the University of Cambridge, said: "The Anniversary has been a unique opportunity to celebrate Cambridge's achievements to date, but it is also about looking forward to the future. The 'Letters To The Future' project will leave a wonderful and fascinating legacy to members of the University and the Cambridge community as a whole when they come to celebrate its 900th birthday in 2109."

The grant will help acquire this important collection of Sassoon’s private diaries and pocket notebooks compiled while serving on the Western Front.  The collection also includes an autograph manuscript of the seminal ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’ - the statement Sassoon wrote detailing his refusal to return to duty after being wounded.  It caused a storm in Britain during 1917 when it was read out in Parliament as Sassoon claimed that the war was being prolonged by those who had the power to end it.

Award-winning author Michael Morpurgo - whose novel ‘Private Peaceful’ includes excerpts from Sassoon’s ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’ - said: “The war Siegfried Sassoon lived through, fought in, and wrote about, was supposed to be the war to end all wars.  It wasn’t.  The reason his words echo down through the decades so powerfully is that they are sadly as relevant to today’s wars, and so to us, as they ever were to his. How right and proper then it is that Cambridge University will acquire the papers of this great poet and diarist for the nation, with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.   Every generation, all of us, should read, mark, and never forget how it was, how it really is for young men when older men send them off to war. We may then learn.”

Jenny Abramsky, Chair of the NHMF said:  “This is such wonderful news.  The passing of the UK’s last surviving First World War veteran earlier this year has brought into sharp focus the sacrifice made by so many in service to the nation during both World Wars and the sacrifice still being made today.  The National Heritage Memorial Fund was founded to help safeguard our heritage as a lasting memorial to those men and women.  Sassoon’s archive – full of fascinating personal accounts of his own experiences at war - provides the perfect tribute.”

Once fundraising is complete, the archive is to be held at Cambridge University Library which already has several significant sets of Sassoon’s letters and manuscripts accessible to readers.  The Library has for many years played a leading role in conserving the records of Sassoon’s life and works and this addition will make the Library’s Sassoon collection the most significant in the world.

The University Library’s £1.25 million campaign to purchase the archive launched at Sotheby’s in June and is now tantalisingly close to success.  The campaign is being led by Max Egremont, Sassoon’s official biographer and supported by author Sebastian Faulks, the former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion and military historian Richard Holmes.

Anne Jarvis, Cambridge University Librarian, said: “We are absolutely delighted with this wonderful demonstration of support from the NHMF. This is hugely encouraging news for Cambridge University Library and for all the many donors, large and small, who have given their generous support to the campaign so far. In the current economic climate, it would have been impossible to foresee a successful outcome for the campaign without a substantial grant from the NHMF. Thanks to this outstanding support, we now have a realistic hope that we can secure the Sassoon Archive for the nation. However, we still need to raise the outstanding balance of £110,000 for the purchase, and also raise additional funds for cataloguing, conservation and exhibiting the archive to make it accessible to as wide an audience as possible.”

Max Egremont said: "The generosity of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and other donors should now make it possible to save this extraordinary archive for the nation.  I was fortunate enough to be able to use the papers for my 2005 biography and to discover what a unique insight they give into Siegfried Sassoon's life and work.  The response to the appeal has been heartening in these difficult times and shows Sassoon's popularity and importance as a writer.  If the rest of the money can be raised, the papers will soon be available to the public.  It is particularly appropriate that they will be in Cambridge, Siegfried Sassoon's old university and a place that he loved."

Among the treasures of Cambridge University Library is Darwin’s richly annotated library. Thanks to a JISC/NEH-funded collaborative project between the Library and high-profile partners including the Natural History Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, Darwin’s marginalia - originally transcribed manually in the 1980s - will be ‘digitally married’ to the texts they annotate and made available to scholars within the international Biodiversity Heritage Library (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/)

The project is supported by the JISC/NEH Transatlantic Digitization Collaboration grant program offered by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a joint committee of the U.K. further and higher education funding bodies.

For further information, see
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/09/transatlanticcollaboration.aspx
 

The image shows annotations made by Darwin in his copy of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (5th edition, 1837), held at Cambridge University Library.