The Frankie Howerd Archive

Posted on 21 October 2021

We are delighted to announce the acquisition of the Frankie Howerd Archive by the Borthwick Institute for Archives.

Keeper of Archives Gary Brannan with items from the archive.

Frankie Howerd was born in 1917 in York, and spent the first few years of his life in Hartoft Street, Fulford. His father was a soldier and was serving in the army in the city, whilst his mother’s family was from York, and she worked at the Rowntree's factory.

The archive reveals new insights into Howerd’s career in show business, which spanned six decades. At the heart of the collection are some 36 boxes of scripts, contracts and agency correspondence, detailing the the whole of his career on stage, sound and screen.

The archive contains hundreds of scripts by Howerd’s legion of writers, including comedy legends Eric Sykes, Spike Milligan, Galton and Simpson, Marks and Gran and Clive Anderson. Some of the scripts have been revised or annotated by Howerd himself. The archive includes the script for an unseen US adaptation of ‘Up Pompeii’ called ‘The Pompeii Way’; Howerd’s own copy of ‘Carry on Up the Jungle’ featuring many unrecorded scenes; plus thousands of contracts detailing all the ups and downs of Howerd’s career, including his seminal appearance at Peter Cook’s ‘Establishment’ club which relaunched his career and changed the face of stand-up comedy.

The archive was acquired with the generous support of The Friends of the National Libraries, the V&A Purchase Grant Fund; the Storey Fund for Library and Archives; and the Friends of the University of York Library and Archives. The acquisition was facilitated in collaboration with Neil Pearson Rare Books.

If you’d like to know more, you can explore our initial Frankie Howerd Archive catalogue here; or to learn more about Frankie, his connections to York and what it was like to write for Frankie, have a look at our dedicated Frankie Howerd Archive website.