Richard Bright left behind a legacy of letters, notebooks and other papers.  A substantial collection of these papers came into the possession of the Norfolk Records Office (NRO) in Norwich in 1983. All images on this page are ©NRO .

Most were so illegible – badly damaged by water and mould – that at first  it was not even known that their provenance was Richard Bright.

However  from 2014, supported by the Wellcome Trust, the National Manuscript Conservation Trust and private donation, it was possible to scope the work and begin the conservation of the papers.

Fortunately, most of the letters were  written with Iron Gall Ink. This has a high indelibility and may still be legible despite being subject to moisture. In some instances, the ink remains in situ even though the surrounding paper has been completely disintegrated .

During the original condition survey, every letter and notebook was given a damage rating from 1 (minimal damage) to 6  (severely degraded). It was originally proposed to only treat those items rated 1 to 4, but as the treatments evolved it became possible to repair even some Level 5 & 6 documents, depending on the amount of legible text remaining and the difficulty in unfolding the items.

View a presentation by NRO of their remarkable conservation achievements  Richard Bright talk Sep 2022 (Yuki Russell, NRO)

Read an academic description of the techniques they used: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18680860.2020.1808355

Regrettably lack of funding means that in 2025 the conservation and cataloguing of the Bright papers remains incomplete. However another descendant of Richard Bright has recently  deposited their portion of Bright papers with NRO, which fortunately is in good condition.

All images on this page are ©NRO

Last Updated on May 28, 2025 by John Feehally