MATTHEWS

[Jessie Matthews, ‘The Dancing Divinity’, English actress, dancer and singer, star of stage and screen.] Autograph Signature to publicity photograph for Gaumont-British by Raphael Tuck and Sons.

Author: 
Jessie Matthews [Jessie Margaret Matthews] (1907-1981), British actress, singer and dancer, star of stage and screen, dubbed ‘The Dancing Divinity’ [Gaumont-British; Raphael Tuck and Sons]
Publication details: 
No date. [1920s?] ‘A Gaumont-British Star / Raphael Tuck and Sons’ “Real Photograph” Postcard No. 66’, Printed in England.
£25.00

9 x 14.5 cm glossy publicity photograph. On reverse: “A Gaumont-British Star / Raphael Tuck and Sons’ “Real Photograph” Postcard No. 66”. In fair condition, lightly aged, with a couple of indentations. Inscribed at bottom right: ‘Best Wishes / Jessie Matthews’. A black and white head-and-shoulders shot of a wide-eyed Matthews staring at the viewer over her left shoulder, with short hair, in a white feather hat and white fur coat, against a black background. Scan on application.

[Sir Stanley Matthews, great English footballer.] Autograph Signature on postcard with Blackpool Football Club letterhead.

Author: 
Sir Stanley Matthews (1915-2000), great English footballer who played outside right for Stoke City and Blackpool
Publication details: 
No date. On letterhead of Blackpool Football Club Limited, by whom Matthews was employed between 1947 and 1961.
£23.00

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The postcard, which is blank on the reverse, has been cut down into an irregular shape, roughly rectangular and approximately 11 x 7.5 cm. At the head is the printed Blackpool FC letterhead (‘All communications to BLOOMFIELD ROAD GROUND, BLACKPOOL). Two strips of glue from tape flank the firm signature ‘Stanley Matthews’, which rises slightly and is underlined. Otherwise in good condition, lightly aged.

[Lauriston E. Shaw, Dean of the Guy’s Hospital Medical School, London.] Letter of recommendation for ‘Mr A. K. Matthews M.R.C.S LRCP’.

Author: 
Lauriston E. Shaw [Lauriston Elgie Shaw] (1859-1923), physician, Dean of the Guy’s Hospital Medical School, London.
Publication details: 
1 January 1895; on letterhead of the Medical School, Guy’s Hospital, London, S.E.
£45.00

3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once for postage. Signed ‘Lauriston . E . Shaw / Dean of the Medical School & Asst Physician to Guy’s Hospital’. Begins: ‘Mr A. K. Matthews M.R.C.S LRCP has been known to me as a student at Guy’s Hospital during the last five years.

[Isabella Petrie Mills, Manchester suffragist.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Isabella Petrie-Mills') to 'Mr Matthews' of Rochdale, reminiscing about her family and discussing her health.

Author: 
Isabella Petrie Mills (b.c.1827; fl. 1916), suffragist, wife of the banker John Mills (1821-1896), President, Manchester Statistical Society; daughter of Rochdale engineer John Petrie (1792-1883)
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Coniston, Hale, Nr. Altrincham. 2 October 1916.
£120.00

In 1899 Mrs Mills published a biography of her husband, titled 'From Tinder Box to Larger Light'. See the references to her in Crawford, 'Women's Suffrage Movement' (2003), and Daley and Nolan, 'Suffrage and Beyond' (1994), the latter work containing a reference to a meeting with Frederick Douglass. Her father, as she states in this letter, was 'John Petrie of South St Rochdale' (Petrie (1792-1883) was a Belfast-born engineer). 4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged.

[Colin R. Coote, Managing Editor, The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post.] Typed Letter Signed to H. L. Matthews, defending his 'Churchill anthology', discussing 'the old man', and recounting an anecdote about him which 'cannot be publicly quoted'.

Author: 
Sir Colin Reith Coote (1893-1979), Managing Editor, The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, and Liberal politician [Herbert Lionel Matthews (1900-1977), American journalist; Winston Churchill]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, Fleet Street, London. 24 November 1954.
£56.00

1p., 4to. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper. 'Sombody', he explains, has passed on a cutting of Matthews's 'very kind review about my Churchill anthology' ('Sir Winston Churchill, a Self-Portrait; constructed from his own Sayings and Writings and framed with an Introduction', 1954). He refers to a luncheon to which he was invited by 'Mr.

[Simplified Spelling Board, New York.] Twenty-five printed circulars, numbered 1-21, 23-25 (including two versions of 16), promoting English spelling reform.

Author: 
Simplified Spelling Board, New York [Thomas R. Lounsbury; Mark Twain; Calvin Thomas; Brander Matthews; Henry Holt; Burt G. Wilder; William Hayes Ward, Editor of The Independent; William H. Maxwell]
Publication details: 
The twenty-five items printed by the Simplified Spelling Board, 1 Madison Avenue, New York, between 30 April 1907 and 30 September 1911.
£950.00

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in 1906, funded by Andrew Carnegie, and counted Mark Twain and President Theodore Roosevelt, and the English lexicographers James A. H. Murray, Walter W. Skeat and Joseph Wright among its members. The present collection of the Board's Circulars consists of 25 uniform items, all unbound and stapled. The collection is in fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with occasional wear. Stamps, shelfmarks and labels of the Board of Education Reference Library, London.

[Sir Evelyn John Ruggles-Brise, Principal Private Secretary to Home Secretary Henry Matthews.] Autograph Letter Signed ('E. Ruggles Brise') to [Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty] regarding an application for his brother to be appointed a stipendiary magistrate.

Author: 
Sir Evelyn John Ruggles-Brise (1857-1935), Principal Private Secretary to four British Home Secretaries, prison reformer [Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty; Henry Matthews, 1st Viscount Llandaff; Borstal]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. 13 December 1915.
£35.00

2pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Addressed to 'A. S. Gatty'. Matthews has asked Ruggles Brise to acknowledge Gatty's letter, and to say 'that he will be happy to bear your brother's name in mind: but Bradford have not applied for the appointment of a fresh Stipendiary'. Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty was one of the sons of Rev. Alfred Gatty (1813-1903); another son was Sir Stephen Herbert Gatty (1849-1922), later Chief Justice of Gibraltar, who is the subject of this letter. The author Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885) was a daughter.

Autograph Letter Signed ('C J Mathews') to Hollingshead.

Author: 
C. J. Mathews [Charles James Mathews] (1803-1878), son of Charles Mathews, English actor and playwright [John Hollingshead (1827-1904), English journalist and theatre manager]
Publication details: 
23 November 1865; 25 Pelham Crescent, London.
£38.00

12mo, 1 p. Fair, on aged paper, with traces of previous mount adhering to the corners of the blank reverse. Of course Hollingshead should 'wait till the last night of "used up" ' before writing to Mathews, who has 'hunted up Buckstone - hunted up Turpin - but in vain. Not a box to be had'. He has sent 'the best I could get': '3 Dress Circle to Mrs Smiles with "Mr Hollingshead's best compliments." '. In a postscript states that if Hollingshead wants 'a box for the "Overland Route" before the last night' he will be 'too happy'. 'There is always a run on last nights.'

Autograph Letter Signed ('Jas: Stanley:Little') to S[eymour C.] J. Freeman-Matthews [of Cape Town].

Author: 
James Stanley Little (1856-1940), British novelist
Publication details: 
28 September 1900; on letterhead 18 Drakenfield Road, Tooting Common, S.W.
£30.00

One page, quarto. On aged and lightly creased paper. He is sending the signature with 'one or two others'. 'Possibly the work I have done for South Africa (I have been upholding the Imperial cause for a quarter of a century) is your reason for paying me the compliment.' Thinks he recognises from Freeman-Matthews' crest that he is 'a descendant of the Llandaff Mathews family'.

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