Manuscripts

[Nottinghamshire], Kingston Hall, 1881-1951.

Manuscript volume, c. 255 x 155 mm., unpaginated but the text block measures 4cm. There are signatures to every pages, ranging from about 10 per page to 15-20. Bound in full straight-grain morocco, lettered in gilt and with gilt tooling to edges and dentelles, all edges gilt.

This is the original visitors book for Kingston Hall, covering the years 1881 to 1951, and including a wealth of signatures including William Waldorf Astor and Arthur James Balfour. A unique record of the golden age of country house living, encompassing both political and society figures. There are approximately 360 pages, and a rough estimate would be considerably over 3000 signatures, many are return visitors and signed numerous times. Kingston Hall is a country house in Kingston on Soar, Nottinghamshire, built in the 1840s from designs the architect Edward Blore for Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper. It has since been refurbished and divided into apartments. The visitors are numerous, and among the family names that keep appearing are Howard, Menzies, Locker Lampson, Lovat, Keppel, Pennant, de Marchant, Ferrers, Manners, Paget, Lyttleton, Tollemarche etc, along with members of the gentry, signing by their title, such as Hampden, Lichfield, Galway, Lewisham, St Albans, and many more. Amongst the individual names as visitors are: 1. William Waldorf Astor, with his daughter Pauline Astor 2. Jan Ricardo (the inspiration for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca) 3. Mollie Cazalet (socialite) 4. Arthur James Balfour (on page 1, and before he became the Prime Minister) 5. Julian Russell Story (American painter) 6. Reginald Manningham-Buller and family members 7. John J Astor (we believe this to be the Titanic Astor but possibly signed by a secretary, entry dated January 1909) 8. Alan H Milne (writer & illustrator) 9. George Otto Trevelyan (British statesman) 10. Horace de Vere Cole (the Irish eccentric and prankster, his most famous one being The Dreadnought hoax, in which he and members of the Bloomsbury Group (Virginia Woolf, then Virginia Stephen, Adrian Stephen and Duncan Grant) dressed as Abyssinian royals (dressed by Willie Clarkson) and were given a tour of HMS Dreadnought). 11. Alexander of Battenburg (first prince of the Principality of Bulgaria) 12. Constance Spry (the author and florist) 13. Harry Brittain (journalist & politician) 14. Montagu & Esme Curzon (British soldier and Conservative politician) 15. Francis J. Savile Folijame (Politician) 16. George Murray Smith (publisher) 17. Harold Gore-Brown (soldier who took part in the Relief of Ladysmith) 18. A.B. Freeman Mitford (British diplomat, traveller, collector and writer) 19. Charles W Birkin (British soldier, commander of The Sherwood Foresters (Robin Hoods) in the Great War until injured in 1915) 20. George Herbert Duckworth (Public servant, half-brother to Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell) 21. Laura E. Ridding (British biographer, suffragist and philanthropist) 22. Joseph Choate (Us ambassador to Britain, visiting with Waldorf Astor) 23. Yugala of Siam 24. Claude Goldie (English rower) 25. Princess Louisa (daughter of Queen Victoria) 26. Lyndhurst Bruce (British soldier, killed in action near Wyteschaete, December 1914) 27. Sir Arthur Pease (industrialist and coal owner) 28. Hervey Tudway (cricketer, died of wounds after the Second Battle of Ypres, 1914) 29. Allan Walton (of Bramhall, Cheshire; Suffolk artist, and textile designer, using designs by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell) 30. Mansfield Markham (film producer) 31. Barbara Gould (British Labour politician and suffragist) 32. Lois Wishart Thomson (killed in 1940, after the RMS Empress of British was sunk by a U-boat) 33. Douglas R Jardine (cricketer) 34. Ghanshyamsinhji Daulatsinhji Jhala (as Ghanshyamsinhji of Limbdi, Indian cricketer) 35. Freddie R Brown (cricketer) 36. Inez Quilter (British schoolgirl WW1 poet) 37. and the Smith family (evacuees in Sept 1939, for two weeks!) The book also contains handwritten records of local by-elections and general elections, and in some cases with the signatures of National Conservative MPs and speakers who attended the local hustings. The house also played host to some members of national cricket teams who were playing in Test matches, with including Australia 1930 & 1938, South Africa 1947, West Indies 1950, with several team members signing pages (but not all). The house was birthplace of Lavinia Fitzalan-Howard, Duchess of Norfolk, herself a keen sportswoman and for many years, the traditional curtain-raiser to the English international cricket season was a match between Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk's XI and the visitors, played at Arundel Castle.