THIS TIME AND LAST TIME PONSONBY (Arthur A.W.H., 1871-1946, M.P., Liberal and Labour Politician and Peace Campaigner, from 1930 1st Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede)

Pair of Autograph Letters Signed to Mrs Barbara WEST, (elder daughter of the architect Percy Richard Morley-Horder, 1870-1944, wife, 1930, of Roger Rolleston West, DSO), saying "I go on pegging away on the simple & uncontestable theme that any settlement before carnage begins on a large scale must be better than a vindictive treaty after a 'knock out blow' ... We have the war 'for peace' (1914, 'the war to end war'), the war 'for liberty' (1914, 'to make the world safe for Democracy' i.e. 8 Dictators in Europe!), an atrocity book (1914 the Belgian atrocities) etc etc.", but he points out "two new features. The obvious reluctance on either side to plunge into the thick of it and more significant still, instead of the ... accusations of being a traitor and pro-German ... last time, I get letters of complete agreement and 'What are we fighting for?' again & again", while "Peace societies" now "have to devote their attention to conscientious objectors. The Peace Pledge Union has 140,000 members and is having good meetings without opposition", yet "'the knock out blow' becomes the one & only object" of the Government (under Neville Chamberlain). he gathers "from letters that a good deal of the orthodox war spirit reigns in the Court House" (12th November 1939), in the second letter "Even a journey for the day to London is an adventure" with uncertain trains and Air-raid warnings, "the House of Lords was very draughty as the windows on one side were all blown out", his speech on 20th August "was not reported" but parts were circulated "and I received a number of sympathetic letters ... A day or two ago we went over to E. Meon. Your father ... talked in the most interesting way on every conceivable subject - less about the war" than about "Gardening ... he gave us some of his wonderful apples", about "the recent biography of Roger Fry, architecture, building, archaeology, Marie Corelli, etc. etc. No one can be better company ... I thought your mother looking younger & better than ... for a long time ... Your father is interesting himself ... in a little stone tablet we want to put up to Elizabeth in Lynchmere church", (14th October 1940), together 4 sides 4to, Shulbrede Priory, Lynchmere, Haslemere, 1939 - small defect in one blank lower corner

Arthur Ponsonby was born at Windsor Castle, the son of Queen Victoria's private secretary Sir Henry. In 1898 he married Sir Hubert Parry's daughter Dorothea, and they settled down in the medieval Shulbrede Priory in West Sussex, for which Parry composed the charming piano pieces Shulbrede Tunes.
Barbara West's husband was awarded the DSO on the 9th December 1914, for helping blow up the bridge at Pontoise as a Second Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps.
Percy Morley-Horder built fine country houses, shops for Sir Jesse Boot, university buildings at Cambridge, Oxford and Nottingham, and Cheshunt College in Hertfordshire. From about 1937 he restored as his home the former Court House of the Bishops of Winchester at East Meon.

Item Date:  1940

Stock No:  56712      £250

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