A treasure trove of archive papers and personal objects – from Hawking’s seminal works on theoretical physics to scripts from episodes of The Simpsons – are to be divided between two of the UK’s leading cultural institutions following a landmark Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) agreement on behalf of the nation.  The £4.2m AIL agreement between HMRC, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Cambridge University Library, Science Museum Group, and the Hawking Estate, will see around 10,000 pages of Hawking’s scientific and other papers remain in Cambridge, while objects including his wheelchairs, speech synthesisers, and personal memorabilia from his former Cambridge office will be housed at the Science Museum. Under the terms of the historic agreement, Professor Hawking’s extensive Cambridge archive will be cared for and made available to current and future generations of scientists hoping to continue his ground-breaking work in theoretical physics, and will provide future biographers and science historians with an extraordinary gateway and insight into Hawking’s life and work.  Cambridge University Library is already home to manuscripts, books and theses from some of the most famous scientists, mathematicians and astronomers in history including James Clerk Maxwell, JJ Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Dorothy Hodgkin (nee Crowfoot). The UL also safeguards the archives of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, and his 19th century successor George Airy. The University of Cambridge is launching a major fundraising drive to complete the painstaking work of conserving and cataloguing the archive, and to ensure that members of the public are given an opportunity to engage with the archive through a programme of exhibitions, events and digitisation in the Cambridge Digital Library…”