It has been suggested that one reason was the absence of an early biography. It was the intention of Mundella's daughter Maria Theresa to write his biography (which would undoubtedly have been celebratory), but despite working for some years on his archive, collecting contributions and loans from others, and making lengthy transcriptions, nothing was published. She died in 1922. Her collected Mundella papers then passed to his granddaughter, Dorothea Benson, Lady Charnwood, who presented them to the University of Sheffield Library in the 1930s.