1. [Commonwealth & Colonial History & Law] – Luke, Sir Harry [Lukach, Harry] – ‘the most unwasted life of any man I have known’ – (Sir Ronald Storrs on Sir Harry Luke)

Very Large Archive / Collection of British Colonial Official & Lieutenant-Governor of Malta, Sir Harry Luke. The Archive is Sir Harry Luke’s very personal and one might say, confidential collection of original autographed letters, correspondence and books he surrounded himself with at the end of his life. The Archive includes important and meaningful personal and official letters from important historical figures in the Arena of the Middle East and especially Palestine with for example interesting legal insights into the Jewish-Arab conflicts of the 1920s, as well as working-copies of books which Luke wrote himself at every location he was posted to during his career. In order to understand the vastness of the Archive you need to visit our website and see the nineteen (19) chapters of Material we synchronised chronologically with Sir Harry Luke’s life [Search for “Library & Collections” and find 19 chapters at the bottom of that page]. The Archive contains an unbelievable and impressive array of several highly interesting letters and correspondence regarding key historical events as disparate as the Mudros/Gallipoli-Campaign under Rosslyn Wemyss, the Jaffa Riots, the Western Wall Riots of Jerusalem in 1929 as well as information on diplomatic activity prior to the Suez Crisis, descriptions of locations like Guadalcanal prior to the War in the Pacific, detailed information on personell at Gardner Island / Phoenix Islands during the vanishing of Amelia Earhart, to only name a few bizarre coincidences. The books contain manuscript annotations and preparatory notes for later editions as well as many letters written to Luke regarding the many postings he served at during his long career in the Colonial Service. The Archive includes several hundred pages of correspondence between Luke and other officials within the Colonial Office, often in multi-page letters. Also included is proof of Luke’s connections to the Ecclesiastical World of the Vatican and Lambeth Palace, his diplomatic abilities are praised in letters from friends and officials alike. Luke received cordial letters from Queens (Queen Salote) as well as polarizing letters from Politicians. Included are manuscript notepads as well as confidential reports from other diplomats on locations where Luke was soon to be taking office, e.g. British Western Pacific Islands. The Archive is unique in its form because it represents not only the correspondence between Luke as an official but also allows us a view into the life of a Career Diplomat of the last days of the Colonial British Empire who develops a deep connection with everyone he served with and under. Luke did not only keep correspondence with famous friends like Ronald Storrs but also emotional letters from those who served under him and respectfully stay in touch beyond the termination of Luke’s service. Many letters to family colleagues in the Colonial Office, Politicians, Priests with political functions, are preserved with Luke’s original typescript-answer or initial letter. The official and often explosive and historically meaningful content with striking relevance for reinterpreting Mediterranean, Middle Eastern Conflicts etc. makes this archive a must for research and posterity. This is not just any diplomat’s archive. The majority of these letters are unpublished but are waiting to be discovered (see for example the long letter by Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray on the Palestine Commission. Also included his Luke’s very valuable, handwritten manuscript-notebook of colonial postings-recipe-collections together with his working copy of the very special cookery book “The Tenth Muse”. The majority of the collection is now catalogued and visible on our website. A collection of c. 89 letters and 43 items of Ephemera has not been catalogued yet.

England / Palestine / Israel / Malta / Cyprus, Fiji / Sierra Leone etc., 1898 – 1968. Octavo / Quarto / Folio. c.15000 pages (books) / Collection of hundreds of Letters (see images) / Photographs and ephemera etc. Original Hardcover / Softover – Bindings (also private interim-bindings), often with the rare dustjackets in protective collector’s Mylar, some without dustjackets. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Please check our website under “Libraries & Collections” and see detailed listings of books and letters, all categorized.

2. [Cumberbatch, Benedict] Cumberbatch, Henry Arnold / Rees, Helen / Basil Benwell Rees / William Benwell Rees / Etheldreda Blanche Barker / [Sir Winston Churchill / Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne [Private Secretary to Sir Winston Churchill]].

Large Family Archive of the Benwell Rees – Family, including William Benwell Rees (brother to actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother Helen Rees, by marriage to British Diplomat Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, who was Consul in Romania, Turkey and Lebanon ). The archive includes at least one manuscript letter by Henry Arnold Cumberbatch and around one thousand documents chronicling the lives of the ex-patriate Benwell Rees family from 1890-1970 in Alexandria and Monaco, including William Benwell Rees, whose marriage to Etheldreda Blanche Barker cemented the family’s role in the highest circles of Alexandria life. The archive also charts their son Basil Rees’ decade in Monaco under Princess Grace and Prince Rainer III where he served as President of the British Association in the 1950’s-‘60s and solicited a letter written by Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne, on Winston Churchill’s behalf on Chartwell headed paper in which the former Prime Minister declined to attend an event in Monaco [signed by Montague Browne]. The archive is held in five heavy volumes, bursting with a plethora of amazing and wonderful historical letters, ephemera, emotional messages and telegrams, old images, theatre-programmes, and especially also includes programmes of plays in which ancestors of Benedict played (J.M.Barrie, Shakespeare etc.). The original letters and documents paint an interesting picture of Benedict Cumberbatch’s grandmother’s side of the family history in the Levant, their service in the Middle East and their social lives. The five volumes are bound in bespoke red morocco over textured paper-covered-boards and they contain at least one reference to Helen Rees next to a newspaper-clipping and dozens of wonderful handwritten letters and cards. Each volume about four inches across spine with title in gilt to upper cover and around 100 leaves in each with documents mounted recto and verso throughout, with photographs, invitations, business materials and clippings that chart the family’s life in their service for the British Colonial Office. The five Volumes include for example: Volume 1: The Benwell Rees’: begins with Egyptian Gazette, 1890 and a programme for a performance c1900 at the Port Theatre, Marina, Alexandria of Rumpelstilkskin; visiting cards and contemporary reports of the marriage of W B Rees and Etheldreda Blanche Barker in Alexandria, February 1901; Windsor Hotels prospectus and flyer (a WBR enterprise); 1913 Casino de Monte Carlo ticket for Ethel Rees; Kings School Canterbury ephemera and St Johns’ College, Cambridge for Basil Rees from 1920’s, graduated June 1924. Volume 2: The Benwell Rees’ Vol II, 1920’s-1990’s: includes J M Barrie, Quality Street programme for English Girls’ School, Alexandria, 1941; invitations from Princess Grace of Monaco etc Volume 3: Basil Rees Vol III, cover nearly detached, 1953- Basil Rees living at 2 Rue Origene, Alexandria, and covering period of move to Palais Majestic, Monaco after which he served as President of the British Association and his sudden death in 1967. Invitations to dinner and place settings with the Prince and Princess of Monaco. Birthday greetings; international stamp collecting societies. Photographic ‘Permis de Sejour’ for William Benwell Rees in Monaco, October 1918. Volume 4: Basil Rees Vol. IV Begins with telegram from Rees to the Queen; mostly very extensive formal correspondence concerned with Rees’ Presidency of he British Association in Monaco; invitations, notes, printed volume of Statutes of association from 1950, royal correspondence with Monaco and Britain. Volume 5: Basil Rees 4-5 1902 Vol II; William Basil Benwell Rees; Royal Navy ID card, British Forces, September 1943 – other material relating to Rees’ work as Duty Defence Officer at the Royal Navy Defence Base in Alexandria, HMS Nice. Volume begins in 1902 and includes Alexandria Dog Show, W B B Rees at Jesus College, Cambridge; Egypt NAAFI permits; lock of Basil Rees’ hair, aged 2 etc.

Alexandria / Monaco / etc., c. 1902 – 1967. Octavo. Half Morocco. Bindings stronger rubbed and slightly damaged.

3. Norris-Newman, Charles L.

With the Boers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1880-1 / With A New Map of the South African Republic and Text of the Convention of 1884. [Including an extensive Appendix with a Glossary of Local Terms used in South Africa – The Transvaal Volksraad – Convention Between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the South African Republic – Notices of the Boer Leaders etc.].

Second Edition. London, Abbott, Jones & Co., Limited, (1881). 15 cm x 22.5 cm. XVI, 392 pages. Fold-out map near front showing South African Republic. Hardcover [publisher’s original khaki cloth] with gilt lettering and tooling on spine. Blind ruling on boards. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Appendix unopened (uncut). Binding firm and strong. Interior is bright and clean with sharp corners. Preowner’s name on half-title: “Miss McCracken – 19th Dec.1899”.

4. MacDonald, J.R.L. / [Provenance: Edmund Heathcote Thruston].

Soldiering and Surveying in British East Africa, 1891-1894. With Maps and Illustrations.

First Edition. London and New York, Edward Arnold, 1897. 15 cm x 23 cm. Frontispiece, XVI, 333 pages. 12 illustrations, including frontispiece. 8 maps, including fold-out colour map at rear showing “Major MacDonald’s work in British East Africa.” Hardcover [publisher’s original maroon cloth] with gilt lettering on spine. Deckled edges. Good- condition. Large yellow ’‘Mudie Select Library”– label on front board. Rear board bears remnant of removed label. Minor staining and rubbing to boards. Tears at gutters between pastedowns and endpapers with exposed cloth front and rear. Binding is shaky but bookblock still solid. Front endpaper partially loose. Armorial bookplate of Edmund Heathcote Thruston with latin inscription (Esse Quam Videri) on front pastedown. Names of two previous owners on half-title page. Occassional annotations throughout the book. Occasional foxing throughout. Rare !

5.

General Act of the Brussels Conference Relative to the African Slave Trade. Signed at Brussels, July 2, 1890. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. February 1892.

London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1892. 15.3 cm x 24.3 cm. 82 pages. Softcover / Publisher’s original blue printed wrapper. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Small tears to front cover near spine. Binding still strong and firm. [Treaty Series, No.7]

6. Felix, Ernest J. / Bosanquet, Lieut. Henry T.A.

How to enter the Royal Navy. With an article by Lieut. Henry T.A. Bosanquet, R.N. Cover Specially designed by H.M.Livett.

London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., no year (c.1898). Small Octavo. Frontispiece, (8 unnumbered pages), 102 pages plus 22 unnumbered pages of Advertising. With five (5) photographic illustrations. Original Hardcover (decorative blue publisher’s cloth). Poor but firm condition of the binding and some repair to Frontispiece and titlepage with stronger signs of wear. Smaller damage to rear pastedown. Complete with all photographs. One of the rarer titles on the Royal Navy and its recruiting techniques at the end of the Victorian Age. Name of preowner on pastedown: “P.W.Newenham, Coolmore, Carrigaline, County Cork”.

7. Stuart, J.

A History of the Zulu Rebellion 1906, and of Dinuzulu’s arrest, Trial and Expatriation. With Five Maps, Six Plans and Twenty Five Illustrations.

London, Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1913. 14.5 cm x 22.5 cm. Frontispiece, XVI, 581 pages. Large fold-out map sheet at rear, showing a Key Map of Natal and Area of Operations. Hardcover [publisher’s original red cloth] with gilt lettering on spine. Gilt top edge. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Minor foxing to edges and tissue-guards, as usual with this publication. Interior bright and clean besides very minor signs of foxing.

8. Morrison, G.R.

Mixed Farming in East Africa. With a foreword by Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Francis Scott.

London, East Africa, 1935. 15 cm x 22 cm. 159 pages, X pages of colonial advertising / ads at rear (Kenya Coffee, Advertisement targeting Farmers and Settlers in East Africa etc.). Hardcover [publisher’s original brown cloth] with lettering on spine. With the very rare, original dust-jacket in protective collector’s mylar. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Very occasional foxing. Interior bright and clean. Binding firm and strong and square. The jacket in excellent condition !

9. Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles.

A Complete Guide to Heraldry. [With a chapter: “The Status and the Meaning of a Coat of Arms in Great Britain”]. Illustrated by Nearly 800 Designs, Mainly from Drawings by Graham Johnston, Herald Painter to the Lyon Court.

Revised Edition. London and Edinburgh, T. Nelson & Sons, Ltd. / T.C. & E.C. Jack, Ltd., no year [c.1925]. 18 cm x 24 cm. Frontispiece, XII, 647 pages. With 779 illustrations and 9 plates including frontispiece. Hardcover [publisher’s original tanned cloth] with lettering on spine and front board. Large heraldic device on front board. With rare illustrated dustjacket in protective mylar. Deckled fore and tail-edges. Gilt top edges. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Dustjacket chipped and torn. Some minor foxing to endpapers and edges. Some untrimmed pages. Unmarked interior.

10. Symons, N.V.H.

The Story of Government House [Raj Bhavan].

Bengal, Bengal Government Press, 1935. 14.5 cm x 22 cm. Frontispiece (Lord Wellesley as Govenor General, 1800 from a painting by R. Home), 155 pages, XVII. Some black and white photographic plates and illustrations throughout. Original Hardcover. Good condition with obvious signs of external wear. Book block and binding intact although frontipiece is cleanly detached. Message in ink pen to endpaper “With love to Henry from the Staff 29/5/46”. Covers slightly warped.