Elizabeth Ralph's first comments in her report on the Shrine archives were : "The archives seem to consist mainly of records assembled by A Hope Patten together with information collected on two occasions in an attempt to write a biography of him. They also include the official records of the institutions founded by him."

This statement still represents the core elements of the collection, but in the intervening years more material has been added from a variety of sources. Fr Peter Cobb amended the details of the catalogue during this time, and now another archivist has taken over the care and development of the collection.

Below is the outline list of classes into which the material falls, as drawn up by Miss Ralph. For several reasons it is thought best to retain this core outline. More detail will appear later, but as we have no facilities for opening the archives to the public we shall not publish more than the outline list at present. It should give a clear enough impression of what the archive holds, and as the website grows there are now more opportunities to find the answers to questions online (consult the INDEX or contact the archivist).

Please note that some classes contain only a few documents, and that the inclusion of a subject in the catalogue does not mean that we hold its entire archive.

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