FIRST

This offprint is scarce. The only copy on WorldCat at the Caird Library of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. See Watt's entry in the Oxford DNB, which underlines his pre-eminence: 'At the battle of Jutland (31 May 1916) twenty-nine of the thirty-four British battleships and battle cruisers engaged were of Watts's design.' The item is an offprint from the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, vol. 61 (1919). 65 + [1]pp, 4to. Side-stapled, with no covers.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, which states: ‘After the death of his first wife he married second, on 24 June 1933, Caroline Maud Abadie (1863–1948), the widow of General Sir Henry Richard Abadie; she was the daughter of Colonel Fanshawe Gostling, of the Royal Berkshire regiment.’ In addition to the two letters apiece from Sir Reginald and Lady Tupper, the material includes, as Item Five, a leaf carrying a 26-line postscript from Lady Tupper to a lost letter. All but Item Five below are on uniform 12mo leaves of grey paper.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. Eighteen lines of typed text, under the heading ‘VISION AND SERVICE.’ Undated, but certainly written after 1918, since the document is responding to changes since ‘the pre-war world of yesterday’. The final reference to a ladder, echoes a passage in Leverhulme’s 1919 tract ‘The Six-hour Day and other Industrial Questions’. Large bold signature at bottom right: ‘Leverhulme’. The signature and its environs are in good condition, on a document of aged and worn paper, with tearing to a central horizontal fold repaired with archival tape.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 16mo. Eighteen lines. On first leaf of bifolium. In good condition, on lightly aged paper. Folded once. Addressed to ‘Dear Ilbert’ and signed ‘James W Lowther’. He has ‘prepared a series of telegram [sic] to all the news agencies and to the Clerk of the Works at Westminster’, and will dispatch them as soon as he receives ‘any intimation from the P.M’. He has another telegram ready for the London Gazette. ‘I think we can reasonably expect that, with 48 hrs notice, all M Ps and the staff would have sufficient notice’.

A tenuous Titanic item: at the time of writing Simon, as solicitor-general, was representing the Board of Trade at the British enquiry into the sinking, at the address on the letterhead. See his entry and Ilbert's in the Oxford DNB. Joyce Violet Ilbert (1890-1957) was the youngest of Sir Courtenay's five daughters. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice. Written in pencil. Signed ‘John Ilbert’.

See his entry, and that of his father the civil engineer, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On separate letterheads. The recipient is not named and there is no salutation (though the letter is complete). Signed ‘Brassey’. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘I have two maxims for [hourly?] use. / I do the little I can do and leave the rest to thee / What thou livest live well. The rest commit to Heaven / Nor should the last message of the greatest sailor since the world began ever be forgotten / England expects that every man this day will do his duty’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 8vo. Large bold signature - ‘Richard F. Phillimore / 1920.’, a third of the way down the page on what is clearly the fly leaf of a book. The rest of the leaf is blank. The side of the leaf with the signature is somewhat discoloured, the reverse not so much. In good condition otherwise.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged, with one dog-eared corner. Reads: ‘To the / Secretary of the London Library. / St James’s Sq / Sir / Be good enough to let me have the book of which I enclose the title / Yours / Halifax’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The identity of the recipient is unclear. Written on one side of a small (12 x 9.5 cm) plain card. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn, with one vertical crease. Reads: ‘Dear Walter / Enclosed is, as you may see, addressed to Speaker Court. I opened it & think it may be for Miss Erskine. If not, will you send it on to Lady Ilbert. Nothing is known of it here. / Yours sincerely / James W Lowther’. Lady Ilbert was wife of the Clerk of the Commons, Sir Courtenay Ilbert, from whose papers the item derives.

See the entries on Grey and Lady Ilbert's husband (who was Clerk of the Commons) in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. In an elegant hand. Reads: '15. 2. 15 / Dear Lady Ilbert / Many thanks: I shall be very glad to dine on Wednesday / Yours sincerely / E Grey.'

This is an extremely scarce item, not held by the Imperial War Museum, and significant for the five-page eye-witness account it contains (pp.29-33): ‘‘H.M.S. “Ardent” and the Jutland Action. / By A. M.’, i.e. Lieutenant-Commander Arthur Marsden, who was in command of the Ardent and one of only two survivors of its sinking. It is remarkable that he was allowed to disseminate such a candid account (for the perusal of naval cadets!) within months of the engagement. On cover: ‘The Britannia Magazine / Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. / Christmas, 1916.’ and printers’ slug.

2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, but with the blank reverses of the two leaves both carrying traces of glue from previous mounting, and slight damage and loss at the foot of both. Good firm signature. Reads: ‘Dear Gibson - / I have just received your note asking for my signature. I think you were at Westgate in the early months of 1915 when I was. I wonder how you are getting on these days. I do hope that the scouts are all right and going strong & that you yourself are in the best of health & spirits / Yours very Sincerely. / Red. H. Mulock.’ See Image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. With mourning border. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. He apologises for an engagement that will keep him ‘out of Town’ on the date proposed. Reads: ‘My dear Joyce / I should so much have enjoyed coming to your party, & it was very kind of you & Olive to think of it / Yours affec[tion]ately / Milner’.

Apparently an earlier version of the concluding part of Chetwynd’s dystopian first book, ‘The Copper Cow’, published in London by Anthony Blond in 1962 which gives a surrealistic description of a Britain of the near future. Duplicated typescript, double-spaced and printed on rectos of leaves only, all attached with metal stud. Paginated 115-210, preceded by title page and section title. In good condition, lightly aged. With deletions and manuscript corrections duplicated, but no actual manuscript emendations.

See the two men's entries in the Oxford DNB. Each of the two letters is 1p, 4to, with the Prince’s letter on the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium, and the Earl’s signed autograph copy of his reply on the recto of the second leaf of the same bifolium. Both leaves are discoloured and damaged, with wear and loss from infestation, but the two signatures and the area around them are good and clear. The document has been folded twice for postage. Strip of white tape along gutter of blank reverse of second leaf from mount. ONE (Frederick’s ALS): Fifteen lines.

See the entry for the recipient Dawson Turner in the Oxford DNB. Farr’s entry in ‘Alumni Cantabrigienses’ reads as follows: ‘FARR, THOMAS. Adm. pens. (age 18) at TRINITY, Apr. 8, 1814. S. [and h.] of Thomas. B. at Beccles, Suffolk. School, Bury St Edmunds (Mr Malkin). Matric. Michs. 1814; B.A. 1818. Ord. deacon (Norwich) June 17, 1821; priest, Mar. 3, 1822 ('T. Farr, the younger'). Travelled in Spain during the Carlist War, 1S35-7. In 1S38 published A Traveller's Rambling Reminiscences of the Spanish War, in which he defends De Lacy and the British Legion. Died Feb. 8, 1855.

The original item. On one side of a piece of a piece of paper roughly 70 x 100 cm, folded into a 10.5 x 15.5 cm packet of fifty panels. An attractive item, but in need of some attention: on brittle and discoloured paper, with several closed tears. The map was the work of Col. H. B. Hudson. A significant map, still cited in the Sino-Indian border dispute. For the background see 'Two Important Maps from the Survey of India', Geographical Journa, October 1915. First published in 1914, but the only copy of this 1917 version located in the National Library of Australia.

Buxton was a popular Governor-General who formed an effective partnership with Botha. 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Addressed to ‘B Piffard Esq’ and signed ‘Sydney Buxton’. He is obliged for the ‘copies of the “West Herts Radical”’, and is glad to hear that Piffard is ‘able to circulate such a large number in your Division’. He hopes it will have ‘a satisfactory effect on the next Election’.

See the description of Caine’s political views in his entry in the Oxford DNB. He began as a communist, but became a Christian Socialist, and a supporter of the Liberal Party on the mainland of Britain (he was a member of the Isle of Man House of Keys from 1901 to 1908) and a follower of the Church of England. The present item would appear to relate to the ‘impassioned propaganda’ that Caine published in the Daily Telegraph from September 1914 (ODNB). It is 1p, 4to.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. A bold, untidy and yet stylish signature, in exactly the state one would hope to find Bairnfather moniker. It gives the impression of having been sent post-haste from the trenches, scrawled in pencil on a piece of vertically-ruled paper torn out of a notebook, ruckled and grubby, and laid down on an unruckled and clean 15.5 x 9.5 cm leaf with rounded edges, torn from an autograph album. The signature ‘Bruce / Bairnsfather’ is across the head of the landscape page, with a jagged line (intended for the flourish?) by Bairnsfather across the foot.

See the entries on Simon and Ross in the Oxford DNB. At the time of writing Ross was a Fellow of Oriel College. Barnett House in Oxford was established in 1914 as a result of an appeal to academic and political figures, mainly through the actions of another Oriel fellow, Sidney Ball (1857-1918). It was named after Canon Barnett, founder of the university settlement Toynbee Hall. Barnett House was intended as a ‘citizens’ house’ - a centre for economic and social enquiry, and between 1957 and 2004, as a department of the university, was a centre for the training of social workers. See G.

Four scarce pieces of ephemera: no other copies of them traced on either JISC or WorldCat. See Ross’s entry in the Oxford DNB. The three reports give lists of college persons, with general and particular news. Items Two to Four in good condition, lightly aged and creased; Item One as described below. ONE: ‘ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD / 1917-1918’. Signed in type by ‘L. L. P.’ [i.e. Langford Lovell Price, retiring treasurer] and dated 31 July 1918. 7pp, 12mo. On two bifoliums of thin war-economy paper, glued together.

A nice item, suitable for framing, relating to one of the best generals of the First World War. (He commanded one and a half million troops in the 1918 Battle of Vittorio Veneto, defeating the Austrians - a third of a million of whom surrendered - and closing the Italian Front.) Clearly given in response to a request for an autograph. The good bold signature ‘Generale A. Diaz’ sits slightly over the centre of an otherwise-plain 15 x 10 cm piece of wove paper, laid down on paper backing. In good condition, lightly aged, with two unobtrusive vertical fold lines. See Image.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. With mourning border. In fair condition, aged and worn, with remains of white 'star' wafer mounts adhering to the four corners. Beneath the underlined heading 'Note for Secretary' reads: 'The relative positions of Iris & Phoebe do not appear to agree in papers marked (2) and (4) in my letter. Please let me know which is right. / LB.' Presumably Iris and Phoebe were ships.

See the entries for Milner and Ross in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Addressed to 'Dear Mr Ross' and with good bold signature 'Milner'. The subject of the letter is the philanthropic ‘settlement’ Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, founded in 1884 by Canon Barnett and Henrietta (DBE), his wife.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 13 x 6.5 cm piece of thin paper, apparently cut from the end of a letter for an autograph hunter. In good condition, lightly aged and creased, folded twice. Reads: ‘Francis Grenfell / Maj Genl / April 16 / 1892.’ See image.

Silver gelatin negative photostatic print of two documents: 3pp, 4to (i.e. each of the three pages on 19.5 x 24 cm. leaf). The first page of Goschen’s two-page ‘Aide Mémoire’ on a separate leaf, and the second page and von Jagow’s note on different leaves of a bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. N.B. The entire item is a photostatic copy. Reproduced at the head and down the left margin of the first page of Goschen’s text are manuscript notes in German (including at top left: A15930 pr. 4. August 1914 pm. / Von Sir E.

See the entries for Grey and Ross in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Reads: ?My dear Provost / Probably you will not think that the enclosed requires any answer or that it is a matter for the head of a College but as it concerns a member of Oriel I send it on to you / Yours very truly / Grey of Fallodon.?

See the entries for Grenfell and Ross in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium of light-grey paper. In fair condition, aged and spotted. Folded once for postage. The identity of the recipient is unclear, but the item derives from the papers of Sir David Ross [W. D. Ross], Scottish philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (see the Oxford DNB).

Edward Knobloch’s play ‘My Lady’s Dress’ (‘in which’, as one newspaper wrote at the time, ‘the heroine’s dream takes her to the foreign [and London] scenes surrounding the manufacture of a costly gown’) premiered at the Royalty Theatre in London in 1914 and was revived several times through the 1920s.