Halifax (Edward Wood, 1st Earl of)

Four typed letters signed ('Halifax') to Sir W.D. Ross, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1929 to1947 and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1941 to 194. The first letter reads "I had meant to have written before to make contact in the only way that geography at present permits on your assumption of the Vice-Chancellorship. I shall very much look forward to the association with you, though I am afraid that, as your predecessor found, the University gets but very little help from its Chancellor in these days! If there is, however, any matter on which urgent communication is required, the Foreign Office can always be persuaded to send a telegram, and the Registrar knows all the machinery. I have heard no more as yet from the representatives of Sir John Townsend, in regard to which I had some communication with your predecessor and the Registrar while I was in England"; a later letter reads "I am very glad the Townsend affair has turned out as it has. I shall be glad to hear from you in due course as to what the University may think it possible to do ex gratia for him by way of pension. If this can be done, I should have thought it would be wise to heal any sore so far as we can"; in another letter Halifax thanks Ross for writing when his son Peter was killed in action "It is a great source of happiness to feel that the operations in which our son lost hist life should look like being so decisive"; the fourth letter says Halifax will be happy to have his name added to the appeal Fund for the University Church; four pages, light creasing and folding marks, 4to, British Embassy, Washington, 30 October 1941- 27 March 1946; with an autograph letter by Halifax, addressed to Professor Ross, accepting his invitation to dine with him in Oxford, two pages, 8vo, Hickleton, Doncaster, 20 October 1946 (5)