[Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease, Liberal politician and industrialist.] Autograph Letter Signed (‘Joseph W Pease’) to ‘Dale’, noting the ‘happy’ state of England and improved governance of London, on the opening of the Darlington Junior Liberal Club.

Author: 
Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease (1828-1903), Liberal politician, Quaker industrialist and banker.
Publication details: 
19 April 1884; from Hotel de Luxembourg, Nimes; on letterhead of 24 Kensington Palace Gardens, W. [London]
£80.00
SKU: 23860

4pp, 12mo. Fifty lines of neatly-written text, addressed to ‘My Dear Dale’. On bifolium. In good condition, with creases from being folded into a packet. Minuted by recipient at head of first page. He is sorry that his ‘continued absence abroad’ will prevent him from attending the formal opening of ‘the Committee of the Darlington Junior Liberal Club’. He describes the ‘several reasons to look forward to the opening day as a very auspicious one’. The fact that the ‘Darlington Jnr Liberals’ have ‘thus banded tthemselves together for useful work’ is ‘a cause for congratulation’, as is the fact that ‘you have secured the presence of so distinguished a man as Professor Stuart’. ‘But far above these considerations it appears to me, that the Liberal Party was never better bound together to continue the progress of the Reforms which have made England so happy a country. It is difficult to remember a time when the Conservative Party were so without a policy - and so little to rely upon but destruction. The triumphant majority on the Franchise Bill is a proof of this position.’ The ‘London Reform bill’ is placing ‘the Municipal Government of the whole of London in the hands of the Ratepayers, and making the Lord Mayor of London - that which he ought to be - the head of a great Municipality rather than the nominee of a few individuals’.