Lot 19
GORDON (CHARLES GEORGE) Autograph letter signed ("C.G. Gordon"), to Mr Penman of the Gravesend Ragged School, headed "The day of your School treat", Galatz, 5 March 1872
4 December 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£600 - £800
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GORDON (CHARLES GEORGE)
Autograph letter signed ("C.G. Gordon"), to Mr Penman of the Gravesend Ragged School, headed "The day of your School treat", assuring him "...I do daily twice pray for the welfare of this school...", describing his life in Romania and the area's troubled history; and pining for his beloved Gravesend ("...You see the same careful loving mothers., the same careless happy Russian Willie Websters running about, as in Gravesend, the Lord's ways are all equal, and to Him, they are as much valued as the greatest in the world, and thus seeing them makes me think of your flock..."), 4 pages, on mourning paper, browned and split (with old thread repairs), 8vo, Galatz, 5 March 1872
Footnotes
Written while Gordon was serving at Galatz as British Representative on the Danubian Commission. Previously he had been posted at Gravesend to erect forts for the defence of the River Thames: before that he had served in China, where he earned the soubriquet 'Chinese' Gordon and a wide measure of fame. Whilst in Gravesend he devoted most of his considerable energies to ministering to the local homeless boys or 'scuttlers' as he called them, even taking them into his home, Fort House, which he turned into a school. At the request of his close friends, Frederick and Octavia Freese, he served on the Gravesend Ragged School Committee until his departure from the town in 1871 and would certainly have attended the annual "School Treat" involving a tea, a procession with banners and an educational lecture. The recipient appears to have been W.G. Penman, of Gravesend, superintendent of the Sunday School, who was to serve as Joint Secretary of the Gravesend Gordon Memorial Fund and coroner for the town.
As with lots 247 and 248, this letter is sold to benefit Livability, a charity with its roots in the Ragged School system.