[Christ’s Hospital, London public school.] Six forms and circulars relating to the application for admission of Stanley Thomas Cross (later of the League of Nations); two letters from Cross to his mother about going up to Pembroke College, Oxford.

Eight items from the papers of Stanley Thomas Cross, including six evocative pieces of Christ’s Hospital ephemera. Four of the items have some singing to extremities (in a couple of cases affecting a few words of text), otherwise the material is in fair condition. The material ranges in dimension from foolscap 8vo to 12mo. Items One to Five are printed circulars (each with the school crest) relating to the Christ’s Hospital admissions process, dating from 1894 and 1895, all from ‘R. L. Franks, Clerk’. ONE: 17 October 1894. Informing Mrs Matilda Cross that her son is ‘about to compete for admission’. TWO: 22 November 1894. Informing Mrs Cross that ‘S. T. Cross’ has been ‘recommended for admission’. THREE: 1894. 4pp, foolscap 8vo. Printed by Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin’s Lane. Giving ‘particulars of the Regulations relative to the presentation and admission of children into this Hospital’s Boarding Schools, under the Scheme of the Charity Commissioners’. FOUR: 22 January 1895. Notice of admission examination by ‘the Head Master, and by the Medical Officers of the Hospital’, headed in manuscript ‘The Presentation having been received’. Giving the ‘subjects of examination’ in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and English grammar, with medical details, including that the child’s hair must be ‘newly cut, and free from grease’. The child should be provided with a Bible, Book of Common Prayer, Hair Brush and Comb, Tooth Brush and Pair of Stout Slippers. Other regulations are stated. FIVE: 22 January 1895. Headed ‘Revised Notice’ in red ink. Truncated and slightly amended version of parts of Item Four, directing that ‘The Child [Stanley Thomas Cross] is to be brought by the Petitioner named in the Nomination Paper, to The Office in Christ’s Hospital, London’, where he is to be ‘examined by the Medical Officers of the Hospital’. SIX: Mimeographed facsimile of autograph letter, dated 6 December 1894, with actual signature of the Christ’s Hospital clerk R. L. Franks, and addressed by him to S. T. Cross’s mother ‘Mrs. [Matilda] Cross’. Begins (with autograph additions by Franks in square brackets): ‘I have now the pleasure to inform you that the Council have approved the recommendation of the Education Committee that your son, [S. T. Cross,] be admitted into this Hospital’s Boy’s School [subject to the provisions of the Scheme]’. SEVEN and EIGHT: Two Autograph Letters to his mother (Mrs Matilda Cross), one signed ‘Stanley’ and the other without signature. Both on bifoliums and apparently incomplete. Both from Lamb’s House, Christ’s Hospital, West Horsham (the unsigned letter on school letterhead). Neither dated but the unsigned letter docketed 18 May 1903. SEVEN: Undated letter to his mother, signed ‘Stanley’. Discussing the terms of a scholarship (‘They would never take it away except for gross idling.’) to what is clearly Pembroke College, Oxford. 4pp, 12mo. There is a reference to ‘Barton’s letter’ (Alfred Thomas Barton, 1865-1912, Fellow of Pembroke), and he discusses the possible need for a testimonial, living costs at Oxford, and the reduced school scholarship (due to ‘the extraordinary number (nine) of the successful Grecians this year’. The letter concludes (breaks off?): ‘I was kept on after the usual time for leaving, to be a Grecian, & on the understanding that I should obtain the customary exhibition; tis only within the past year that my eyes have been opened[;] my schol[arship] is in no way inferior to those of many past Grecians who have proceeded to the University on School Exhibitions’. EIGHT: Unsigned undated letter to mother, docketed with date 18 May 1903. 3pp, 12mo. Begins: ‘My Dear Mother. / Well I’ve got it. Its only a £60 Schol but I mean to get on somehow. I am now free from all anxiety & at liberty to hunt around for assistance from Companies.There is a reference to another letter from ‘old Barton [...] the Senior Tutor’. He admits: ‘I may as well tell you now that if I had failed to get in before midsummer, I should have given it up. [last clause underlined] For it would have been no use going on any longer.’ He gives further details of the arrangements, with reference to ‘Upcott’, asking her not to divulge ‘how much the schol is worth’, After Oxford Cross would work as a schoolmaster before serving in the Great War. He then worked in the Hague as a translator at the newly-formed League of Nations Permanent Court of International Justice. During the Second World War he worked as a censor at the BBC in London, before returned to the Hague, retiring six months before his death in 1950.