Having seen the UKC News item the other day, I have been a bit stumped by the exact story that is going on. It appears that Cumbria Archive Services (CAS) are wanting to buy the Alfred Wainwirght Paper to stop them leaving Cumbria. Now the CAS are part of the County Council, but it doesn’t say what the £200000 is for.
Does the CAS need the money to be able to continue to house the papers or has the Wainwright family fallen on hard times and looking for a £200000 cash injection? Either way I am not neccessarily in agreement that it is a good use of the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Is anybody else actually interested in buying them. If the lot is going up for auction who else is going to spend that amount of money? If its an American I can see them being rather disappointed as they probably think that it is the other older more famous Wainwright, and it will be like selling them London Bridge rather than Tower Bridge.
I guess for me there needs to be a bit more rational cost benefit, rather than simply keeping them in Cumbria and allowing them to be used for research. Basically as we edge ever so slightly out of recession, £200000 is too steep a price to pay for his papers.