SIR

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Lightly aged and worn. With central horizontal and vertical crease for postage, each quarter with double pinholes at the centre (from attachment of an enclosure?). Signature unaffected (it starts close to vertical crease). Reads: 'Dear Mrs. Lord / With the greatest pleasure - and with ten thousand apologies. I thought I had answered long ago. But letters lie in heaps in my tray & on my table - everywhere! and I carry them about in bags labelled carefully Unanswered until I dare no longer look inside.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. Eighteen lines, closely written. On creased grey paper, with short closed tear at edge of central crease. The year 1944 has been added in another hand. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Macdermid’ and signed ‘Michael Redgrave’. He is grateful to him for the suggestion that he ‘should be an Hon. Associate Member of your Club, to which I wish every success’, but feels ‘rather strongly that I must not put my name to anything more than I can actively take part in - even if activity is confined to letter writing etc.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB: ‘In the 1840s Peto had thirty-three railway contracts worth £20 million, the largest number held in the kingdom; according to Brunel he was the largest contractor in the world.’ 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded three times. Begins: ‘Sir Morton Peto presents his Compliments to Lady Hooker and begs to acknowledge the receipt of her not of the 9th. Inst. on his return from the Continent’. He regrets that ‘it will not be in his power to assist the Case of Dr.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both items in good condition, lightly aged, on grey paper, with central horizontal fold. Each signed ‘Aston Webb’. ONE: ANS to ‘Dear Walter Spiers’, 27 March 1899. 1p, 16mo. Thanking him for his congratulations on his election. TWO: ALS to ‘Dear Mr Baldwin’, 20 June 1903. 1p, 12mo. After thanking him for his congratulation he continues: ‘We had a most delightful dinner with you the other evening.’

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded twice, with spots of discoloration around the creases and slight nick at head of leaf. On monogram (Order of the Bath?) letterhead with motto ‘Tria juncta in uno’. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Townshend’ and signed ‘Clements R Markham’. Acknowledging receipt ‘of a paper by your brother-in-law Mr.

See Smirke’s entry, and those of Cooke and Heath, in the Oxford DNB. His most celebrated design is the Reading Room of the British Museum. 2pp, 12mo. With monogram and mourning border. On first leaf of a bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Begins: ‘My dear Sir, / Vernon Heath, of Piccadilly, has made me a photograph of our new front, which is I think fairly satisfactory.’ He has told Heath to deliver a copy ‘addressed to you at the R. Academy’. As it is ‘rather large’, he did not like to send it ‘by post or Parcel’, as it ‘might get crushed on its way to you.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded twice, with spots of discoloration around the creases and slight nick at head of leaf. On monogram (Order of the Bath?) letterhead with motto ‘Tria juncta in uno’. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Townshend’ and signed ‘Clements R Markham’. Acknowledging receipt ‘of a paper by your brother-in-law Mr.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Lightly aged and worn. With central horizontal and vertical crease for postage, each quarter with double pinholes at the centre (from attachment of an enclosure?). Signature unaffected (it starts close to vertical crease). Reads: 'Dear Mrs. Lord / With the greatest pleasure - and with ten thousand apologies. I thought I had answered long ago. But letters lie in heaps in my tray & on my table - everywhere! and I carry them about in bags labelled carefully Unanswered until I dare no longer look inside.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB: ‘In the 1840s Peto had thirty-three railway contracts worth £20 million, the largest number held in the kingdom; according to Brunel he was the largest contractor in the world.’ 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded three times. Begins: ‘Sir Morton Peto presents his Compliments to Lady Hooker and begs to acknowledge the receipt of her not of the 9th. Inst. on his return from the Continent’. He regrets that ‘it will not be in his power to assist the Case of Dr.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Plain postcard. Lightly aged. Addressed to John [Graham, obscured by postmark], The Willows, Church Road, Lowfield Heath, Crawley, Sussex. Reads: ‘Many thanks. I am terribly sorry to say that I am a broken reed at the moment, because there are various conference dates I haven’t got. I’ll write when the situation clarifies. / Best wishes / [in autograph] P. M. / PS Last Wed. of each month is no good: BAA [i.e. British Astronomical Association monthly meeting] day!’ Image on application.

Of his activities around this time the Oxford DNB writes: 'he 'wrote film scripts in Hollywood in 1934–5 for classics such as David Copperfield (MGM, 1935), in which he played a bit part, and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)'. The subject of the letter may be his novel 'The Inquisitor', published by Macmillan in 1935. 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded once. Reads: ‘Dear Mr. Hunt / Here is a proof. The quotations are from the [?] Version. to me the only [last word underlined] version. / Yours sincerely / Hugh Walpole’.

See her entry in Grove. The letter can be dated by the reference to Sir William Mitchell (see Oxford DNB) and the operetta 'The Rival Beauties', which he produced in London and then Plymouth. The letter is on one side of the paper, has been cut down to 11 x 9 cm, and laid down on a piece of card. Aged and worn, with slight loss at top right, affecting one word of text. Thirteen lines of close and neatly-written text, addressed to ‘Dearest Mrs. Sprague’ and signed ‘Yours affectionately, / Erminia Rudersdorff’, with a little of the flourish beneath the signature cut away.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Reads: ‘Dear Miss Jennings / Thank you for your letter. There was however no half crown in the envelope. I searched carefully. / Yours sincerely / Hugh Walpole’.

The first two items are scarce pieces of unpublished ephemera, neither showing up on JISC. See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The three items in good condition, on discoloured and lightly-worn paper. The first two items are written by Rev. John R. Magrath, D.D., Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, as Chairman of the Dorothea Beale Memorial Committee. ONE: ‘For Subscribers only. Dorothea Beale Memorial’. By ‘John R. Magrath, / Chairman. / Cheltenham, / 1 April, 1909.’ 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Folded once.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Now viewed in a favourable light, Panizzi was a controversial figure in his own time, being dubbed a ‘fat pedant’ by Thomas Carlyle, who was moved to press for the creation of the London Library as a result of the Italian’s high-handed behaviour. On 7 x 4 cm piece of grey paper, presumably cut from an album. No othe writing on the slip other than Panizzi's compact and disciplined signature 'A Panizzi.' In good condition, lightly aged, Strips of sunning at top and right edge, but nowhere near the signature. See scan.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Signed 'Oliver Lodge' in pencil at foot of 10 x 11 cm piece of paper, in which slits have been made for loose insertion of the cigarette card. The signature is clear and clean, but the paperr and card are spotted, and the paper is worn with border of discoloration made by tape. The caricature is in colour, by Alick P. F. Ritchie. No 38 out of 50 in a series titled 'Straight Line Caricatures', issued by John Player & Sons. Scan on application

Fourteen items from the papers of Sir Noel Galway Holmes, all but the last relating to his three decades of service in the British Army, with reports and recommendations by superior officers from 1920 to 1939.

Lauder was the highest-paid entertainer in the world in 1911, and the first British artist to sell a million records (by 1928 he had sold two million). See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 14 x 9 cm plain postcard, addressed (by the recipient) to ‘Norman Wetton / 7 Claremont Road / Forrest Gate.’ On the blank reverse Lauder has written: ‘ “D’you Know this ” / Yours very truly / Harry Lauder’. A little grubby and discoloured, but in fair condition. Scan on application.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. On 10 x 12 cm leaf removed from an autograph album. He signs and dates floridly at the foot of the page: 'Austen Chamberlain / 4. 3. 27'. Slits have been cut into the leaf to loosely insert the cigarette card. In poor condition, worn and spotted, with border of discoloration (extending over the end of the signature) caused by tape. The caricature, in colour, by Alick P. F. Ritchie is No. 11 of 50 in the 'Straight Line Caricatures' series of cigarette cards by John Player & Sons.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. A 10 x 3 cm slip of paper, cut from the end of a letter in response to a request for an autograph. In good condition, lightly aged. Reads: ‘Yours Sincerely / Percy Scott’. Beneath this, in contemporary hand, in pencil: ‘Admiral Sir Percy Scott (Terrible)’.

Two very interesting unpublished documents, the first giving an assessment of Churchill by a colleague who worked closely with him throughout the Second World War, and the second describing the important part that individual himself played in the logistical management of the war, from before Dunkirk to after D-Day. This material is from Sir Noel Galway Holmes’s private papers, another batch of which, comprising confidential reports on him, recommendations by superior officers, and particulars of his service, is offered separately.

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.

A scarce item: no copies on WorldCat or JISC, nor at the Caird Library, National Martime Museum (though the latter does have a signed print of one of the illustrations). Twenty-six broadsheet pages, on news stock paper, in shiny paper covers printed in red, blue and brown. Filled with illustrations and topical advertisements for everything from corsetry to bicycles, from a full-page one on the inside front cover for ‘Brickwoods Jubilee Brew / 4d. per Small Bottle in Public Bars’, to one on the back cover reading ‘On Review / United Ales & Stout Are Supreme’.

A contemporary manuscript note to the present item reveals for the first time the identity of ‘Niger’, one of the two correspondents of whose letters it consists. (And minor manuscript corrections to the last of the four letters would seem to suggest the involvement of the author.) This is Sir James Robert Carmichael (1817-1883), 2nd Bart, who was intimately connected with British Guiana through his father Sir James Carmichael-Smyth (1779-1838).

St Aubyn’s entry in the Oxford DNB makes no mention of Plymouth or the Royal Navy. 9pp, foolscap 8vo, on nine leaves of laid paper with fleur-de-lys watermark. In poor condition: an attempt has been made to burn the document, and the left-hand side of each leaf has been badly damaged, with much of it crumbled away in burnt flakes, and the surviving text badly marked on that side. The description on the outside of the packet states that the draft is ‘For the perusal of Mr. Jones’ (presumably St Aubin’s lawyer).

A good letter, not the least of whose interest lies in the fact that it provides first-hand information about the Duke of Wellington. See Martin’s entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘Dear Mrs. Thomas, / Your variant of the King Lear story will, I am sure, delight Mr. Furness. Unfortunately King Lear has already been dealt with by him. It forms one volume of his magnificent Edition. But he loves every thing that concerns old England.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both items are in good condition, and each folded once. The second carries the merest trace of grey paper from a mount at one corner. ONE: To E. B. Nicholson, 3 November 1881. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. Nicholson’s letter has been forwarded to him ‘here in my country house, where I am for a few days’. It is out of his power ‘to promise any assistance to your proposed Magazine.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both items are in good condition, and each folded once. The second carries the merest trace of grey paper from a mount at one corner. ONE: To E. B. Nicholson, 3 November 1881. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. Nicholson’s letter has been forwarded to him ‘here in my country house, where I am for a few days’. It is out of his power ‘to promise any assistance to your proposed Magazine.

A large, attractive printed certificate, somewhat in the style of an early Victorian public notice, with heavily leaded font. Printed in black on one side of a 32 x 41 cm piece of cream vellum paper. Discoloured and ruckled from having been rolled up, but in good overall condition, and highly suitable (once flattened out) for framing. At bottom left, signatures of six ‘Commissioners, and Members of the Board’, one above the other: ‘Adolphus Fieldmarshal / W. H. Clinton / Thomas Bradford A Gnl / J Gardiner DAG / G Scovell Govr. M. Genl. / T W Taylor Col: Lt Governor’.

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.