Thatcher to join Churchill in archive

Baroness Thatcher's political and personal papers are to go on permanent loan to a Cambridge college. The former Tory prime minister said she was "delighted" that the records of her life and work would stay in Britain, and join those of an earlier premier, Winston Churchill.

Lady Thatcher announced yesterday that she would donate her papers to a new charity, the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust, which would lend them permanently - "subject to certain conditions of care" - to Churchill College, Cambridge.

The keeper of the college's archives centre, Dr Piers Brendon, said the papers were "without doubt the most important archive of our times, following that of Sir Winston himself". The collection, which includes photographs and audiovisual material, comprises more than 1,000 boxes of Lady Thatcher's political and personal papers from 1945 onwards. Most relate to her years as leader of the opposition and prime minister.

A spokesman for Lady Thatcher's office said the work on setting up the charity was almost complete, but final arrangements were still being made for moving the archive.

Lady Thatcher said she hoped the papers would "be a valuable source for students and scholars who wish to study the great changes brought about by the Conservative governments that I had the privilege to lead".

The spokesman said papers related to her work as prime minister would be bound by the 30-year rule for government papers, so those from her first months in power in 1979 would not be available until 2010.

Churchill college, founded by Sir Winston 37 years ago, has 400 other collections of papers, including those of former Labour prime minister Clement Attlee and former leader Neil Kinnock, and senior Tories Lord Hailsham and Selwyn Lloyd. The master of the college, Sir John Boyd, said: "Lady Thatcher's initiative is a generous one: we welcome it and will take good care of these papers."