[ Venizelos; R. E. Baynes, Oxford physicist/freemason. ] Two Autograph Letters Signed ('R. E. Baynes'), first containing an anecdote regarding 'the maker of modern Greece' Eleftherios Venizelos at a Christ Church gaudy, the second on Freemasonry.

From the papers of William Scoresby Routledge (1859-1939), Australian-born British ethnographer, anthropologist and adventurer. Both items in good condition, on lightly-aged paper, but the first with a vertical closed tear at the base of one leaf. ONE: On letterhead of Christ Church, Oxford. 2 July 1920. 3pp., 16mo. Bifolium. Routledge's silence, he begins by stating, led him to think that he was 'somewhere on the High Seas', but he has realised that it was due to a mistaken address 'in the Steward's Office Address Book, where 'Conservative Club' has been written for 'Carlton Club'. 'How the mistake arose I cant imagine: for 2 years ago though the usual Clerk was away at the Wars, the Steward had the services of a most excellent & business-like woman clerk whom I never found to fail in doing anything that I, as Secretary, had to ask her to do.' A description of 'the Gaudy' follows: 'We tried to fill the Hall but though I sent out 561 invitations there were only 198 diners.' He proceeds to tell an amusing anecdote about Venizelos, then reaching the end of a turbulent period as Greek Prime Minister: 'Venizalos [sic] was our principal guest & he had consented to address us for 5 minutes in French (as his English is not of easy flow) when most dramatically a tweed-clothed man entered the Hall by one entrance from Common Room, handed him a slip of paper which seemed to cause him much surprise & made him hurriedly rise, briefly apologize to the Dean, & at once disappear – doubtless, as Lord Sumner said in an immediately following speech, to give the Turk “a lesson in compulsory Greek”.' He hopes the 'Sti', to which Routledge is 'off', 'will prove to be savoury as well as pleasant and interesting'. TWO: 'Ch. Ch. Oct 30'. 3pp., 16mo. Bifolium. He does not know why 'any London Lodge shd charge you an extra Fee on joining it because you are not a Subscribing Member of any other Lodge at the time of so joining it. I expect Buckmaster has made a mistake.' As a consequence he is returning Routledge's guinea, and has taken his name 'off the Lodge Books'. If Routledge does find that there are fees for having 'ceased membership with us (but this I cant for a moment believe)', he will arrange the matter for him. The letter ends with further talk of joining fees. Postscript: 'Still at bones?'