Description
British (Scottish) journalist, newspaper editor and politician.
ALS. 3pp. Dollis Hill, NW. March 22nd 1898. To [William] Woodall. Together with a fine contemporary photograph.
"On returning from Warley today I find that, on the 28th (Monday) at 7.30, some friends are coming to dine with us at Dollis Hill - one from Belgium, the Baroness de Stein, the Ambassador's wife, a native of Warwickshire! If you are free to join us, it will afford my daughters and me real pleasure. A line will oblige."
8vo. Approx 7 x 4.5 inches. Mounting residue to blank verso of last leaf, else fine. The portrait is a fine 19th century silver print photograph measuring approx 5.5 x 4 inches (excluding mount) laid down on card from an album leaf. It shows Hugh Gilzean Reid in head and shoulders vignette turning to his left. There are very slight mounting traces to verso but the photograph is in fine condition.
Hugh Gilzean Reid was a self-educated man, descended from a family of Highland crofters. He edited the Edinburgh Weekly News and founded the Middlesbrough Daily Gazette - the first halfpenny evening newspaper in the UK. Both he and his wife were staunch Liberals (his wife Anne was a founder of the Women's Liberal Association). Hugh Gilzean Reid leased Dollis Hill House in North London in 1897, which became a meeting place for many of the great and good of the political and literary world and Mark Twain was a guest there in 1900.
Both the letter and the photograph are from a 19th century collection made by the radical Liberal M.P., William Woodall.
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