Fundraising Underway to Safeguard Writer Sylvia Townsend Warner's Archives

The Dorset Archives Trust has launched a fundraising project to raise £48,000 to catalogue and open up the archive of writer and LGBTQ+ pioneer Sylvia Townsend Warner who lived in the region for much of her life.

"This significant writers' archive deserves to be fully in the limelight," said Chris Fowler, chair of Dorset Archives Trust. "Sylvia Townsend Warner was a great observer of Dorset life during the war years and beyond. DAT is delighted to spearhead this fundraising effort on behalf of Dorset History Centre."

Organisers are aiming to raise £25,000 via a crowdfunder by the end of June 2026.

The project involves the creation of a full catalogue of the archive, making it searchable and accessible online for researchers and the public. It comprises 85 boxes of material including diaries, letters, photographs, drawings, and other personal records concerning Warner's life and literary career. Housed at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester, the collection is currently not publicly available.

A spokesman for DAT said: "Following successful campaigns to raise funds to catalogue the archives of Thomas Hardy and William Barnes, Sylvia Townsend Warner is the third of our key Dorset authors whose archives deserve to be much more widely known about.  Experience clearly demonstrates that once a collection has an online catalogue interest in it grows and sustains with people travelling to view and use the archive or requesting digital copies of items within it."

Warner was born in London but spent most of her life in Dorset with her partner Valentine Ackland and was buried there. She published poems, seven novels including the hugely popular Lolly Willowes, and 154 short stories in The New Yorker. A statue of Warner was unveiled in Dorchester at the end of 2025.