An autograph letter signed ('E. Grey') to 'My dear Holland' (Henry Thurstan Holland, later 1st Viscount Knutsford)
Small octavo, 3 pages (a bifolium, last page blank); 'Fallodon, Chathill, Northumberland' letterhead, 2 January 1904.
Folded once for posting; in excellent condition.
'My dear Holland, I should like very much to help in your Candidature, but I have foresworn all further promises & engagements, till I have got rid of those which I now have & which will take all of my spare time till Easter. And it is only some six weeks since I spoke under the walls (has it any walls?) of Birmingham viz at West Bromwich. I don't think the first will dissolve in the summer: [Joseph] Chamberlain wants a dissolution when the pinch of bad trade is being most felt. We might have a dissolution in February, but more likely in the autumn of 1904 [or] in February 1905'. Grey 'was a Liberal MP 1885-1916 and Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in Gladstone's last administration 1892-95, when the Grey declaration warned the French off the Sudan. He was Foreign Secretary 1905-16 in the Liberal administration of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith' ('Dictionary of World Biography'). Provenance: Collection of The Hon Barry Jones AC.
Item #115573
Price (AUD):
$300.00