[Sir David Chadwick, Indian Trade Commissioner.] Thirteen Signed Letters, eight Typed and five in Autograph, to Sir H. T. Wood and G. K. Menzies, Secretaries of the Royal Society of Arts, mostly regarding membership business.

See his entry in Who Was Who. The thirteen items in good condition, lightly aged, most with RSA date stamp and annotations. A total of 12pp, 8vo, in autograph; and 5pp, 4to, typed. The first ten signed ‘D T Chadwick’ and the last three ‘David Chadwick’. The earliest letter, to RSA Secretary Sir Henry Trueman Wood on 22 December 1916, deals with the publication of Chadwick’s remarks ‘at the discussion on Prof. Todds paper before the Indian Section of the Society of Arts’. On 11 July 1918 he asks if it is possible for the Department of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, to ‘go up for Membership, as a record of the papers read are of undoubted use to this office’, discussing the matter at some length. (‘I want the journal to belong to this office [last two words underlined twice] & not be claimed by the Dept. Is my confrere in Calcutta - the Director General of Commercial Intelligence [named in a subsequent letter as H. A. F. Lindsay] - a member? He ought to join.’) He concludes the letter that follows ‘No thanks are due to me for trying to help the Society. I think it is most useful.’ Letter of 3 September 1918 concerns the publication in the RSA journal of a lecture given by him at the British Scientific Products Exhibition, concluding ‘I found I had omitted all mention of Indigo & of the Behar planters. For Heaven’s sake don’t tell anyone so.’ Among other letters on the same topic is one of 9 September 1918, explaining the reason for an addition he is making to the lecture: ‘I have added this because I see from some of the brief Press extracts which have appeared that a somewhat false impression has been conveyed, namely that all classes in India were benefiting economically from the war. Such, of course, is not the case, and I think it should make it clear that my lecture was in no sense an economic survey of India in war-time, but merely a summary of some of her industrial efforts.’ On 29 May 1930 he writes with regard to an IAB ‘conference of those engaged in the Empire on research in regard to fruit production’, for which the RSA has agreed to rent out rooms, with payment ‘for current used and something to the operator of the lantern. The Society would also, if necessary, provide teas, of course on payment by those attending the Conference’. The last two letters also concern this ‘Empire Horticulturists’ Conference’.