ABOUT THE NOËL COWARD ARCHIVE TRUST

While it is apparent that Coward’s work continues to be relevant to the 21st Century, it is the bold mission of the Noël Coward Archive Trust (NCAT) to not only preserve Coward’s legacy and influence, but more importantly to make the materials from Coward’s lifetime publicly accessible for study, research, and cultural growth via both a physical archive and digital representations of this archive.

A large part of NCAT’s mission is to follow in the footsteps of Coward himself. As an individual who lacked a formal education, Coward greatly realised the significance of schooling, and subsequently taught himself what he needed to succeed in the world he wanted to belong to.

His determination paid off, as can be seen in the image to the right, where Coward received an honorary degree at Sussex University later in life. It is for this reason that NCAT’s educational endeavours are so prominent in our future goals.

In addition, Noël Coward’s charitable undertakings formed a large part of the person he was. Often not a well-known part of Coward’s history, he was in fact the most active president of The Actor’s Orphanage (now known as The Actors’ Children’s Trust), residing as president from 1934 to 1956.

Coward expertly used his status in society to pioneer further celebrity philanthropy; he persuaded everyone of note in the theatrical profession to appear at Garden Parties, as well as getting them to either star in or attend fundraising galas at the London Palladium, all in aid of the charity.

Through his unwavering dedication and altruistic work with The Actor’s Orphanage, Coward provided hundreds of children not only somewhere to live, but also a formal education.

NCAT wish to echo Coward’s own philanthropic activities by using his Archive to not only provide educational opportunities for those less privileged, but also to support the theatrical and artistic community as Coward himself once did.

This history is our culture’s future, and everyone should be able to feel inspired by the positive force that Coward and his contemporaries had upon theatre and the arts.

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HISTORY OF THE ARCHIVE TRUST

The materials within the Noël Coward Archive are mainly located at the University of Birmingham (where some of the material is on loan), the Noël Coward Room in London, which displays a small selection of the materials in the archive, and Cadogan Tate in London, which is a secure specialised storage facility that maintains the materials not housed in the Coward Room.

Since 2014, extensive work has been carried out by an in-house archivist to preserve and catalogue the immense volume of materials that were collected throughout Coward’s lifetime. As a result, there is now a fully searchable directory of over 9,000 items held within the Noël Coward Archive.​

If you would like to get in touch with us about access to any of the Noel Coward materials held at any of these locations, please click here.