Throughout much of his life Peter Anson was an avid letter writer, and much of this personal correspondence survives.
Part of a letter from September 1967 confirming Peter Anson's appointment as 'Collector and Curator' of the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. Below, a letter of congratulation from a Mr. Paton of Edinburgh, on hearing of the appointment.
Diary 1920
Diary 1927
Anson also kept fairly meticulous diaries, and a number of these also survive in the archive. Daily entries refer to his regular correspondence, meetings with friends, and also the weather.
During the war years, printed diaries were much harder to obtain, so, not to be thwarted, he resorted to a plain notebook for the purpose (below).
An author such as Peter Anson would spend much time on research, and the results of this were, in Anson's case, quantities of notes, both handwritten and typed. It is difficult at times to distinguish between typed notes from other sources, and the early stages of typescripts for Anson's own books, but there is clearly a natural progression from the one to the other.
This selection of pages, clearly in Anson's handwriting, contains extracts and notes from an eighteenth century book on fishing in Ireland. Below, an extract from his (typed) provisional itinerary for a trip to Ireland.
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