WADHAM

Captain Hill was the son of Vice-Admiral Henry Hill (1775–1849). In 1845 Captain Hill married Amelia Jane Boyce (1821–1895), granddaughter of the Duke of Marlborough, with whom he had ten children. Hill’s letter is written on the back of the pedigree, and addressed to ‘The Revd / The Warden / New College / Oxford’. It reads: ‘Mr. Warden, / I have the honour of transmitting herewith for your information the Copy of a Pedigree which I have received from the Heralds Office shewing the consanguinity of my Family to William of Wickham the Founder of New College Oxford and of the College of St.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. The recipient Philip Dosse was proprietor of Hansom Books, publisher of a stable of seven arts magazines including Books and Bookmen and Plays and Players. See ‘Death of a Bookman’ by the novelist Sally Emerson (editor of ‘Books and Bookmen’ at the time of Dosse’s suicide), in Standpoint magazine, October 2018. This item is 1p, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged and creased and folded twice for postage. Signed ‘Stuart Hampshire’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB, which states that he has ‘strong claims to be regarded as the greatest sporting all-rounder of his or any era since’. (Neville Cardus counted him ‘among the most fully developed and representative Englishmen of his period’.) It also seems that in 1920 he was offered the chance of becoming king of Albania. His grave at Repton is inscribed: ‘Cricketer, scholar, athlete, Author – The Ultimate All-rounder’.

2pp., 12mo. In good condition. Good firm signature, beneath which, in a contemporary hand: 'Professor of Experimental Philosophy | F.R.S: F.R.A.S.' He has been prevented from thanking Wells for 'the tickets for the Wadham party',having been engaged in 'a series of oscillations between London & Oxford', and his expressions of gratitude 'must now be combined with apologies for my delay in giving utterance to them'. Neither he nor his wife will be able to attend 'the festivity', but he has 'ventured to send the tickets to Mrs. G. R. Scott'.

On both sides of a rectangular (5.5 x 16.5 cm) strip cut from letter. In fair condition, with light signs of age and wear. Recto: '4 Brixton place | Brixton Surry [sic] | Janry: 12th. 1833 | Sir | M Mackenzie has conveyed to me y polite offier of allowing a few prospectus of my [...]'. Verso: 'to Dr. Tournay by my friend Dr Burney, but as your house is the rendezvous of all the learned & the rich in Oxford, perhaps it is unnecessary for me to solicit the onor of Dr Tournay's influence. | I remain, | [...]'.

Octavo: 32 pp. Stitched. In original printed wraps. Internally clean and tight, but wraps dogeared and grubby, with closed tear and pen mark. Tissue-guarded frontispiece of Wadham, with small dogear to top corner (not affecting image). Facsimile of Whittier's autograph. Read before the 'Saturday Evening Club of Dalton'. 'My collection today is so comprehensive [sic] that I have no hesitation in soliciting the most distinguished personages; in fact, I feel that I am conferring an honor rather than offering an insult in asking them.

One page, 12mo. Very good. 'I have much pleasure in sending you my signature, as I am told you wd. care to have it.

Dimensions of paper roughly five inches by three-quarters of an inch. Signed 'John Pratt' between writing in a seventeenth-century chancery hand. Docketed with biographical details in a minute nineteenth-century hand, and enclosed in a piece of paper with further biographical details in another nineteenth-century hand.