Petitions and recommendations for charitable help and poor clergymen
Petitions and recommendations for charitable help and poor clergymen
Petitions and recommendations for charitable help and poor clergymen
Petitions and recommendations for charitable help and poor clergymen
Petitions and recommendations for charitable help and poor clergymen
The Peter Holmes Trophy. Not loaded. No cover. On the base: WRSC [Westminster School Rowing Club]. NB differs from description provided in Sotheby's valuation, see p. 6
Manoah Rhodes & Sons LtdHis prep school, Feltham Fleet, was much stricter than Westminster. Late for the Westminster entrance exam because his father’s car broke down. [3:10] A sherry party for the parents of new boys at Busby’s. [3:36] The characters of different houses. Busby’s was a good balance of liberality and discipline. [6:30] Theo Zinn, a Classics teacher, was a family friend and the reason Gysin came to Westminster. His teaching style complemented Denis Moylan’s. [8:03] A description of various contemporaries. [10:13] His involvement in the Busby play. [11:21] How his time at Westminster has helped him. A lack of exaggerated respect for status and hierarchies. [12:45] The Oxbridge exams. Interviews were less important then. [14:02] The College Street Clarion. Its sporadic appearance. [14:55] The Busby house ledgers. [16:43] The change in the tone of the school when Dr Rae took over in 1970. The school became more involved in wider society. [18:47] The food. Dull but edible. He was the house champion jelly-eater. [20:53] The benefits of the weekly boarding system. [21:42] His involvement in the Busby Society, for former Busbites, and its annual dinner.
No formal addressee or date or signature - apparently the draft of a love letter to one Mary Hallowell, first object of his youthful affection and chosen life companion of his later years, but also a letter of apology and regret
London. Copy of Mr Romilly's opinion on Boylston's will (v. 294?). Reconciliation of Pitt and Addington. Items of gossip. PE has remitted to John the last portion of the family estate. The family has, however, a sixth interest in a new edition of Chambaud's dictionary (perhaps from his bookseller uncle Peter, d. 1802?)
Geneva. Arrived 31st August, having left Brussels on 31st July. Suggests that his nieces trace his route on a map (number of nights in each town is given - Frankfurt is the only very thriving place he has seen on the continent). Description of continental roads, drivers and inns. Germans not prosperous but like fresh air (unlike the French and Italians), and the roads are good and the food is cheap. Geneva is a hole, but Switzerland is beautiful. Heidelberg a gem - wishes Blucher had put barrels of gunpowder under the Louvre in return for Louis XIV destroying the Elector's palace. Likes the Swiss - very like the Germans. French proverb - one must be either a hammer or an anvil - the French are hammers, the Germans are anvils. Country around Liege most reminded him of England. A monument at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine - inscribed by the French on the way to Russia in 1812, and by the Russians on the way to Paris in 1814.