What primary sources exist for Eric Liddell's writings and journals, and where can they be accessed?
Executive summary
Eric Liddell’s surviving primary-source writings and journals are dispersed across institutional missionary and university archives, family-held material now deposited at Edinburgh, and a small body of published work; key repositories include the University of Edinburgh collections, the London Missionary Society papers at SOAS, the Eric Liddell Foundation holdings used by recent researchers, and digitised/printed items available via platforms such as Internet Archive and journal repositories [1] [2] [3] [4]. Researchers should expect to consult both manuscript collections (letters, lantern slides, medals and memorial transcriptions) and published or edited texts rather than a single, comprehensive “Liddell papers” file [5] [6].
1. University of Edinburgh: medals, lantern slides and the core Liddell collection
The University of Edinburgh holds a named Eric Liddell collection that includes personal memorabilia—his Olympic medals were presented to the University by his daughter in 1992—and a small collection of items including thirty lantern slides showing training and athletics presumed linked to Liddell’s student years there, which make the University a first-stop for material culture and some personal papers connected to his Edinburgh years [7] [5] [1]. Recent research on Liddell explicitly cites the “University of Edinburgh Eric Liddell archive” as containing original medals and pictures and as a locus for photographs and transcriptions related to his life [6] [3].
2. SOAS / London Missionary Society archives: missionary letters, exhibition evidence
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) holds the London Missionary Society archives, which have been used to assemble exhibitions and contain archival material on Liddell’s missionary career in China; SOAS mounted an exhibition of LMS material on Liddell in 2012, indicating that correspondence, LMS administrative papers and related missionary records relevant to his journals and writings survive in those holdings [2]. Contemporary accounts of researchers combing LMS files for biographical evidence of Liddell corroborate SOAS as a repository for primary missionary documents [8].
3. Eric Liddell Foundation, BBC archives and research repositories: curated primary material
Academic research published in 2024 acknowledges use of the Eric Liddell Foundation archives and BBC film footage, showing that foundation-curated material and broadcast recordings function as primary-source witnesses for Liddell’s later public profile and personal papers circulated to researchers with foundation support [3] [6]. This indicates an institutional gatekeeper role—the Foundation’s holdings and permissions shape what scholars can access and how narratives are framed [3].
4. Published writings and digitised texts: what is freely accessible
Some of Liddell’s theological or devotional writings exist in print and have been digitised: for example, The Disciplines of the Christian Life by Eric Liddell is available through Internet Archive, demonstrating that at least part of his written output is accessible as published material online [4]. Biographical and edited volumes—such as Catherine Swift’s God’s Athlete—are also digitised and provide transcriptions, though these are secondary treatments rather than unpublished personal journals [9].
5. What the sources do not (yet) make explicit
The surveyed reporting and archive descriptions confirm the presence of missionary papers, medals, photographs, lantern slides and some published books, but they do not provide a single catalogue entry listing all of Liddell’s private journals or the precise call numbers for unpublished day-to-day diaries; researchers should therefore expect to need archive catalog enquiries at Edinburgh, SOAS and the Eric Liddell Foundation to locate extant handwritten journals or private notebooks if they survive [5] [1] [2] [3]. Recent scholarship relied on multiple dispersed holdings and film footage rather than a single archival trove, which suggests the documentary record is scattered [6].
6. Practical next steps and caveats for researchers
To pursue Liddell’s primary writings: contact the University of Edinburgh archives and New College/theological archives for the Liddell material and medals [1] [7]; query SOAS Special Collections about London Missionary Society files and the 2012 exhibition material [2]; and approach the Eric Liddell Foundation for access to foundation-held documents and to learn which items have been digitised or lent to scholars [3]. Scholars should also check digital repositories (Internet Archive) and recent academic publications that list archive sources for specific manuscript citations, since published secondary works report the primary repositories used [4] [6].