About the records

Title	John Rickman collection (P03)
Date Range	1915 - 2003
Creator	Rickman, John (1891-1951) Quaker physician and psychoanalyst
Extent	10 boxes plus 1 file of photographs
Repository	Archives of the British Psychoanalytical Society
Abstract	John Rickman's writings and lectures on psychoanalysis and other subjects, plus papers and correspondence related to his professional activities, including military service during the Second World War.

Administrative Information

Administrative/biographical history

Please follow the link from the creator name (above).

Archival history/immediate source of acquisition

The Rickman collection was deposited in 1998 by his daughter and son-in-law, Lucy and Bernard Baruch (Accession 1988-003), although some of the material in a series P03-A may have been transferred to the collection at a later date from the library of the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

During initial cataloguing, some items were separated and catalogued with other items in the Society's collections: the majority of the correspondence, plus some of the papers related to Rickman's military work, were added to the correspondence collection; the photographs were added to the photograph collection; and the press cuttings albums had been placed with similar material in the Society's records. However, between 2006 and 2008, the papers were recatalogued as one collection.

It should also be noted that these papers were used extensively for the compilation of two volumes of Rickman's papers by Clifford Scott (and others) and Pearl King (see Publication Note, below). Some of their annotations can be found on the documents and some of their own documents remain in the collection, particularly in series P03-A.

Finally, the film in file P03-B-B-01 was originally received as a 35mm film. This film was transferred to the care of the specialist facilities of the Imperial War Museum who provided a DVD copy for our collections (Accession 2007-005).

Scope and Content

A large proportion of the collection relates to Rickman's publications, including his papers, reviews and lectures, as well as the papers of the editors who published his papers posthumously. In addition there is material related to his work with the British Psychoanalytical Society and British Psychological Society, as well as his psychiatric work during military service during the Second World War, his post-war activities and his work with the Peckham Pioneer Health Centre. The collection also contains professional correspondence with colleagues including Wilfred Bion, Sándor Ferenczi and Géza Róheim and correspondence regarding the emigration of European analysts prior to and during the Second World War. Also included are cuttings albums, notebooks and photographs of Rickman and colleagues.

Accruals

It is understood that additional papers remain in the possession of Lucy & Bernard Baruch and Pearl King and may be transferred to the archives in the future.

System of arrangement

The material is arranged into five series, as follows, with some further division into sub-series:

P03-A - Writings, lectures and broadcasts
P03-B - Professional activities
P03-C - Correspondence files
P03-D - Cuttings album and notebooks
P03-E - Photographs

Conditions of access and use

Access conditions

Open for consultation by bona fide researchers, subject to prior arrangement with the archivist and the signing of a reader's undertaking form. A small amount of correspondence containing patient information and employment references (ref. P03-C-B-06) is closed under the Data Protection Act.

Please note that any material from the Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytical Society is available only to members, students and guests of the Society.

Reproduction conditions

Photocopying is carried out at the discretion of the archivist and according to the archives’ photocopying policy, which is available on request. Copies of material still in copyright can be supplied for research use only. Written permission must be obtained from the archivist to publish or reproduce any material held in the archives. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearance from the copyright holder.

Language(s) of materials

English, German, Hungarian.

Finding aids

The collection catalogue is published online and a printed copy is available. A database containing abstracts of some of the correspondence also exists but is not available online.

Allied materials

Related materials

Material related to John Rickman's work within the British Psychoanalytical Society can be found amongst the records of the Society (ref. S). Also, material related to the emigration of European analysts before and during the Second World War can be found in the Society's records, in the Ernest Jones collection (ref. P04) and in the records of the Ernest Jones Rehabilitation Fund (ref. P33).

The following papers are held elsewhere:

The Library of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) holds papers related to John and Lydia Rickman's work in Russia, c1917-1918 (ref. Temp MS 99/5).
The British Library Manuscript Collections include correspondence between John Rickman and the Society of Authors, 1935-1946 (ref. Add MSS 63321).
The Melanie Klein collection at the Wellcome Library (ref. PP/ KLE) includes correspondence related to John Rickman. The Wellcome Library also holds the Royal Army Medical Corps Muniments Collection (ref. RAMC).

Publication note

The following edited volumes of papers have been produced from this collection:

Rickman, John. Selected Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, Scott W Clifford M, editor. London: Hogarth Press; 1957 and London: Karnac; 2003.
Rickman, John. No Ordinary Psychoanalyst: The Exceptional Contributions of John Rickman. King, Pearl, editor. London: Karnac; 2003.

Notes

None.

Published by the Archives of the British Psychoanalytical Society,
With support from The Wellcome Trust
Listed by Allie Dillon
HTML edition
Updated 8 April 2008

The template for this finding aid is part of the Heritage Documentation Management System

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