Citri, N., 1955-1975

Section L, Correspondence, is by far the most substantial and comprehensive section in the collection. Pollock kept his correspondence - incoming letters and carbon copies of outgoing letters - in a single alphabetical sequence ordered by correspondent and this arrangement has been retained. It includes correspondence with some of the most distinguished biochemists, microbiologists and molecular biologists of the day, including E.P. Abraham, M. Cohn, F.H.C. Crick, E.F. Gale, W.E. van Heyningen, J. Mandelstam, J. Monod, G. Pontecorvo, R.Y. Stanier and C.H. Waddington, as well as significant correspondence with researchers who came to work under Pollock at the NIMR (including his colleague M.H. Richmond) and colleagues abroad, particularly in Hungary, to whom Pollock gave encouragement. The bulk of the correspondence is scientific in nature and dates from the 1950s and 1960s. There are exchanges of information on research in progress and planned, requests for strains and specimens of research material, scientific publications and conferences (including a number not documented in section G), arrangements for visitors working with Pollock at the NIMR etc. The correspondence sheds light on areas not covered elsewhere in the collection, thus Pollock's wartime work with the Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service in the 1940s, virtually undocumented otherwise, features in his correspondence with R. Knox. Also of note is correspondence relating to the day-to-day administration of the Department of Bacterial Physiology at the NIMR represented by correspondence with the two Directors under whom Pollock served, C.R. Harington and P.B. Medawar. Many colleagues were also friends and the letters may include personal and social news, expressions of political views and career advice. There is also an index of correspondents.