Catalogue description FOR INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY

The majority of the papers (section A) were presented to the Library in May 1996 by the former Honorary Secretary of FIL, Margaret Gardiner. Her card-index of members (Add.MS9369/A11) had been given to the Library in 1993. At her request, a further three files were extracted from the papers of J.D. Bernal (Add. 8287) and added to the collection as section B.

For Intellectual Liberty, 1936-1940

For a study of FIL, see David Bradshaw: 'British Writers and Anti-Fascism in the 1930s', in Woolf Studies Annual, vol 3, 1997 and vol 4 1998 (copies in box 1).

The Association 'For Intellectual Liberty' was formed in February 1936 following a conference in Paris called by the 'Comité de Vigilance des Intellectuels Antifascistes'. It aimed to be "a rallying point for those intellectual workers who felt that the condition of the world called for the active defence of peace, liberty, and culture" (Bulletin no.1). Members held meetings, wrote to the press, and lobbied their MPs on such subjects as anti-Semitism, the League of Nations, and the Spanish Civil War. In the late 1930s they were also involved in schemes of practical assistance for refugees. The Association seems to have lapsed in the late summer of 1940.