[Duchess of Atholl.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to the wife of Professor David Waterston of St Andrews, the second discussing her position on the question of ‘moral courage’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB, which describes her passionate opposition to fascism, but omits the fact that her name featured among those in the Nazi ‘Black Book’. Waterston was Bute Professor of Anatomy at the University of St Andrews from 1914 to 1942. In 1913, while Professor of Anatomy at King's College, London, he was the first authority to debunk the Piltdown Man hoax. Both items are lightly aged, and both bear traces of previous mount: the second is ruckled at one edge, and has lost part of the signature, and a few words from the conclusion of the letter, which runs lengthwise along the top of the first page. Both addressed to ‘Mrs. Waterston’, and both signed ‘Katharine Atholl’. ONE (24 January 1940): 2pp, 4to. She is ‘horrified’ to have had a letter she wrote some months ago returned, and asks for her ‘stupidity’ to be forgiven. She gives a good report of her husband’s recovery: they hope to ‘get north’ in the week that follows. ‘I am so sorry to have troubled you further by leaving my mackintosh behind. Would be useful here just now!’ TWO ([8 February] 1940): 2pp, 4to. She thanks her for sending the mackintosh and is enclosing ‘6d for postage. I was very glad to have the oat in all the rain & snow here!’ She also thanks her for ‘Professor Leon’s book’, which she could not manage at present. She doesn’t believe that she ‘meant to suggest that moral courage was the highest possible virtue, though I rank it very high.’ She continues with reference to ‘the nation’s affairs’, democracy, ‘the laws of sedition or libel’, ‘the necessity for faith’ and God and ‘the battle against evil’.