Lot 6 , Royal Interest: an archive of letters, telegrams and other correspondence from the Private Secretaries of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, Coventry MP Henry William Eaton and other dignitaries to Albert Samuel Tomson, The

Royal Interest: an archive of letters, telegrams and other correspondence from the Private Secretaries of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, Coventry MP Henry William Eaton and other dignitaries to Albert Samuel Tomson, The Lord Mayor of Coventry, c.1874-1908,
Comprising Letters re: Royal Palaces, House of Commons, Admiralty, Passports & Indentures:

1. House of Commons, 25th May 1897 –Suggestion of Honours for Lord Mayor Tomson

2. Balmoral, 30th May 1897 request ‘forward the specimens of Coventry manufacture’ –Fleetwood Edwards?

3. Post Office Telegram To Mayor of Coventry dated 1897 ‘Presents arrived safely and are greatly admired by the queen will write in a few days, Bigge’

4. Windsor Castle June 18th 1897 ‘Dear Sir, The Queen has commanded me to convey to you her sincere thanks for the beautiful and interesting presents so kindly offered by you………’

5. Osborne August 8th 1898, ‘Dear Sir, Would you kindly tell me the name of the firm by whom the Bicycles presented by you last year to the Queen were made. Yours Faithfully Arthur Bigge’

6. Admiralty Whitehall, Marked ‘Private’, 13th Nov 1900, ‘Dear Mayor Tomson, I thank you very heartily for the kind manner in which you offer your congratulations – It is very gratifying to me to find that my old Coventry friends retain such warm interest in my welfare. I fear I cannot at present make any engagements…..

7. Privy Purse Office, Buckingham Palace S.W, 11th July 1902. The Private Secretary is commanded to express ‘The Kings Thanks to The Mayor of Coventry for the kind and loyal congratulations contained in his telegram from the poor people of Coventry.’

8. Post Office Telegram To ‘Mayor’ Received August 4th 1902 ‘Strictly not transferable you must wear Robes and Chain If no robes uniform or court dress with Chain Norfolk Earl Marshall Norfolk House St James Square. IN RELATION TO CORONATION OF EDWARD VII (August 8th 1902)

9. Balmoral Castle, 3rd Sept 1902, Dear Sir I am sure the King will be happy to receive the address from the Corporation of Coventry direct…..

10. Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, The Colonies and India, 7th Jan 1887, Sir, The Lord Mayor has sent your letter of yesterday’s date to Sir Frederick Stub ??, the organising secretary and I am invited to inform you that the visiting at the Mansion House may be assumed to…..

11. (On Vellum) ITNOTGAOTU The Supreme Grand and Royal Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England Albert Tomson (Mayor of Coventry) admission certificate into the Great Royal Lodge of Masons signed and dated by all relevant parties 21st April 1876.

12. Four Passports of Albert S Tomson (Lord Mayor of Coventry) Passport 24th March 1874 –France signed by Foreign Secretary Edward Stanley 15th Earl of Derby (1826-1893) Salisbury (6th May 1889 –Turkey & Portugal, 12th June 1897).

One of the Passports is a request to The King of Sweden and Norway for
Tomson to visit Russia it is signed by ‘Spencer St John‘ British Ambassador to
Sweden dated 6th September 1895. Spencer St John was British Consul in
Brunei between 1856-58, he wrote about his explorations in Borneo ‘Life
in The Forests of The Far East’ (1862) and wrote two biographies of Sir James
Brooke -‘The White Rajah of Borneo’ in 1879 & 1899.

In 1863 St John became British Charge-d’affaires in Haiti and in 1871 took up the
same post in the Dominican Republic. Promoted to Minister in late 1872 he
became Minister Lima, Peru 1874-1883 and awarded KCMG. In 1884 St John
published a memoir of his Experience’s in Haiti; ‘Hayti: Or The Black Republic’
which caused public outrage with it’s accounts of Cannibalism and Voodoo
amongst the Blacks in the Jungles’.
He is also quoted as saying ‘The History of the Country (Haiti) …is but a series of
Plots and Revolutions followed by Barbarous Military Executions’. (source -wikipedia)

Passport Signed & Dated on Verse & Annotated in Russian by the Senior Official.
All four passports are contained in their Original Green Leather Passport Case embossed in Gold: ‘Albert S Tomson PASSPORT‘.

13.? Indenture Will document of Albert Samuel Tomson dated 11th November 1908.

13. Coventry Cross Cycle Company High Court Document, 1899

14. Henry William Eaton MP signed Indenture to purchase 4 plots of land to build houses in Coventry (for workers).

15. Two Pictures which originally hung in the SWIFT Factory (each reverse stamped ‘SWIFT’) in Quinton, Cheylesmore Coventry, showing cycles from the late
19th century.

Provenance: The entire collection has been in the possession of a collector of Heritage items and Historical documents relating to Coventry since the early 1980’s and as far as he is aware they have never been seen in public.

Literature: The Lord Mayor of Coventry Albert Samuel Tomson -elected Lord Mayor on eight separate occasions between 1881-1896 corresponded with Queen Victoria and sent several sets of bicycles as gifts for Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 from the people of The City of Coventry.
King Edward VII was also sent a set of bicycles as gifts in celebration of his Coronation on the 9th August 1902, which Albert Tomson for his support to the crown as The Lord Mayor of Coventry received an invitation to attend –see Telegrams.

The correspondence sent to Victoria and Edward VII, with replies from their Private Secretaries. Several letters, thank the Mayor of Coventry on behalf of the Queen and Edward VII for the ‘gifts of bicycles’.

All letters are on letter-headed/embossed paper -Windsor Castle, Osborne House (Isle of Wight), Buckingham Palace, St James Palace, House of Commons, Admiralty Whitehall.

Another letter is from ‘Selbourne’ (House of Commons) apologising for being unable to attend an invitation because of duties around ‘my new department’ and suggests offering the gifts as presents, there is also a lengthy letter from the Foreign and Colonial Office of India.

Also in the collection are a set of four 19th century passports belonging to the Lord Mayor -The Honourable Mr Tomson, and signed by Prime Minister Salisbury, contained in his Personal Green Leather Passport case, also included is an indenture will for Mr Tomson in relation to his death and his Grand Masonic Lodge Acceptance Certificate on Vellum.

This collection of letters & documents offer a fascinating insight into the importance of the City of Coventry’s manufacturing heritage and highlights the loyalty of senior elected officials to the Crown and their corresponding Royal communication in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century.


Henry William Eaton(MP), Albert Tomson (Lord Mayor) & James Starley (Inventor).

Henry William Eaton (1816-1892) was a British businessman, Conservative Politician, art collector and MP for Coventry 1865-1880 and from 1881-1887 during Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, for services to Industry and the Empire he was raised to the peerage of 1st Baronet of Cheylesmore, Coventry.

Eaton promoted the industries of Coventry including the emerging Bicycle Industry, he founded the Silk business W. Eaton & Son. The attached Mortgage Indenture signed by Eaton is a purchase of land to build houses to be rented for workers in Coventry.

In 1871 he bought the Manor House in Cheylesmore from the Marquis of Hertford, who originally purchased the estate from the Prince of Wales in the first half of the 19th century to befit his position and status as a Peer of the Realm. He was also a significant Art collector, buying many paintings by Landseer (including Monarch of The Glen) and other works by major artists of the period Frith, Goodall, Roberts and sculptures by Hiram Powers, many of the paintings are now in British National Collections.

Eaton was a friend of The Lord Mayor of Coventry Mr Tomson and together they worked to further the interests of the City in helping it to become a world renowned manufacturing centre for the Bicycle Industry, which then formed the foundation for the emerging Car Industry.

Eaton was also a close friend of James Starley (1830-1881) it is reported that they would play cards together in the evenings at each others houses in Cheylesmore Coventry, discussing Politics, World Affairs and the future of the Empire.
Starley was the inventor and father of the bicycle Industry* and was one of the most innovative and successful builders of bicycles and tricycles in the world. His inventions include the Differential Gear and perfection the Bicycle Rear Chain drive system.

After James Starley’s death in1881, Starley’s sons continued manufacturing bicycles but
it was his nephew John Kemp Starley (1854-1901) that made more of a mark. It was John
Kemp Starley who devised the Rover Safety Bicycle with 26 inch wheels (still a
standard chain) in 1884 showing it in 1885 and outlining that The Penny-Farthing or ordinary
cycle was not safe. In due course motor-driven bicycles became motor-cycles and were
followed by motor cars. John Starley experimented with an electric tri-car around 1888 but
the petrol driven Rover 8hp car was sold in 1904, two years after his death.

£1,000-1,500

Condition:
Document Condition: very good, natural letter folds on most, no foxing or fading all documents have been kept in reduced light and rarely removed from their plastic sleeves.

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