| Description | This large series of correspondence files was kept by Charles Smalley Baker and contains copy letters written by Smalley Baker in his role as Dean of the Faculty of Law and as an official of the Holdsworth Club to former Law students who retained their membership of the Club after graduation. The majority of the correspondence in these files dates from the 1939-1945 period when many Law students and graduates were on active service during the Second World War. Baron Profumo, as a supporter of the Holdsworth Club, had given every member of the Holdsworth Club on active service a silver identity bracelet, with their names engraved, to remind them of the thoughts and remembrances of the Club and Faculty, and some of the correspondence is copy letters written by Smalley Baker when he posted the bracelets to members. Smalley Baker also wrote letters to students on their twenty first birthdays and sent letters giving them news about other former students and about Holdsworth Club activities and the impact of the war on the Faculty of Law. The files include some letters written to Smalley Baker from students on active service and letters from students' parents and other family members. Some students asked Smalley Baker for advice about continuing their legal studies while on active service, and there are letters from students who were prisoners of war in Italy and Germany who Smalley Baker arranged to send gifts of cigarettes and books to. Some letters contain descriptions of military action and other aspects of military service, and there are some letters of condolence, press cuttings, and obituaries after the death of students on active service.
Some correspondence dates from the period immediately after the end of the conflict when students and graduates were returning to civilian life and hoping to resume their legal careers, and the files include copies of testimonials, references, and confirmation of exemption from legal examinations provided by Smalley Baker, together with more general career advice. A smaller number of files were continued by later Deans after Smalley Baker left Birmingham, and some contain correspondence which deals mainly with Holdsworth Club administrative duties
There are some overlaps with the correspondence described at UB/STU/B/4/2 which is a series of files probably kept by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, initially Charles Smalley Baker, and later Owen Hood Phillips and Lionel Neville Brown for individual students in the Faculty which largely contain application forms and copies of testimonials for students seeking employment after qualification but include letters written to former students on active service during the Second World War and contain evidence of attempts to trace former students who were living in Nazi occupied countries during the War. Some of the files are for students who had to take a break in their studies to complete their National Service in the 1950s. |