Haldane, Richard Burdon, 1st Viscount Haldane — The Case for Welsh Disestablishment — Edmund Gosse’s Copy with Autograph Letter from Haldane, 1913

Author: Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane (1856–1928)
Title: The Case for Welsh Disestablishment: A Speech Delivered by the Rt. Hon. Viscount Haldane (Lord Chancellor) in the House of Lords, on July 21st, 1913
Publisher: Liberal Publication Department, 42 Parliament Street, London, S.W.
Date: 1913
Edition: Authorised edition / first separate edition
Format: Octavo
Pagination: 14 pp. plus advertisements
Provenance: Sir Edmund Gosse, with his bookplate to the front pastedown; autograph letter from Haldane to Gosse, dated 23 June 1914, preserved in a bound-in envelope
Binding: Later, but early, burgundy cloth, gilt-lettered spine
Stock Code: 004202
Location: Bookroom

A fine association copy of Viscount Haldane’s 1913 speech in support of Welsh disestablishment, from the library of Sir Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) and retaining an original autograph letter from Haldane to Gosse written from 28 Queen Anne’s Gate, Westminster, Haldane’s London home.

The pamphlet is the authorised separate printing of Haldane’s speech delivered in the House of Lords on 21 July 1913, published by the Liberal Publication Department during the prolonged struggle over the Established Church (Wales) Bill. The bibliographical record confirms the 1913 Liberal Publication Department issue at 14 pages. The Working Class Movement Library also records the title among the Liberal Publication Department’s pamphlets and leaflets for 1913.

Haldane, then Lord Chancellor, was one of the leading intellectual and political figures of Edwardian Britain. A philosopher, lawyer, educational reformer and statesman, he had previously served as Secretary of State for War and was central to the creation of the Territorial Force and major reforms of the British Army. In this speech he addressed one of the most contentious constitutional and religious questions of the period: whether the Anglican Church in Wales should cease to be established and whether its historic endowments should be transferred or redistributed.

The Welsh disestablishment question went far beyond ecclesiastical administration. It touched questions of Welsh national identity, Nonconformity, religious equality, property rights, the constitutional relationship between Church and State and the authority of Parliament. Parliamentary debates of 1913 show just how bitterly contested the issue remained, with opponents arguing that Welsh disestablishment would rupture the historic unity of the Church of England and its Welsh dioceses, while supporters regarded it as a necessary consequence of the distinctive religious and political character of Wales.

This copy has exceptional provenance. It belonged to Sir Edmund Gosse, the influential poet, critic, biographer and man of letters, whose bookplate is present on the front pastedown. More importantly, preserved with the pamphlet is an autograph letter from Haldane to Gosse, written on Haldane’s headed notepaper from 28 Queen Anne’s Gate and dated 23 June 1914. In it Haldane refers directly to the Welsh church question, writing of the “case against the Establishment in Wales” and describing it as a matter that had stirred him. The letter therefore provides a direct personal link between author, recipient and subject.

The association between Haldane and Gosse was substantial rather than casual. The Brotherton Library’s catalogue of Gosse correspondence records an extraordinary 605 letters from Richard Burdon Haldane to Edmund Gosse dating from 1903 to 1928, demonstrating a long and close correspondence between the two men. That makes the present copy particularly meaningful: it is not simply a pamphlet bearing Gosse’s ownership mark, but an object situated within a documented intellectual and personal relationship between two major figures of late Victorian and Edwardian public life.

The letter is also written from the same Queen Anne’s Gate address from which Haldane conducted much of his political and intellectual correspondence. Surviving letters from Haldane at that address are preserved in major archives, and the house itself is commemorated for his residence there.

The later binding is not modern and appears to date from an earlier period of collecting. The original pamphlet is retained within it. The pages are very nice and clean but toned, with a two-inch closed tear to the base of the title page. The binding is firm and presentable. The Haldane letter is preserved separately within a bound-in envelope. Very good overall.

Now housed in an easily removable clear acetate cover.

A particularly attractive association copy combining Welsh political and ecclesiastical history, Haldane, Edmund Gosse and original autograph material, and greatly elevated above a normal copy by its direct provenance and surviving correspondence.

Stock code: 004202. Location: Bookroom.

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