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CHURCHILL (WINSTON) Typed letter signed to E.S. de Beer Esq., with another from Harold Macmillan, thanking him for a gift of £300 "for the benefit of men of letters", 1954 and 1961
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CHURCHILL (WINSTON)
Footnotes
'FOR THE BENEFIT OF MEN OF LETTERS WHO CARE FOR THEIR CRAFT': LETTERS OF APPRECIATION FROM TWO PRIME MINISTERS TO A GENEROUS BENEFACTOR.
The recipient of these letters of thanks from Churchill and Macmillan was Esmond Samuel de Beer (1895-1990), historian, patron and philanthropist. Born in New Zealand, he read history at Oxford and was able to devote the rest of his life to scholarship thanks to a considerable fortune inherited through his maternal family, the Hallensteins, whose clothing chain is still trading today. His scholarly reputation was assured with definitive editions of the diary of John Evelyn, published in 1955, and the letters of John Locke, published over twenty years from 1976 to 1989. An unfailingly generous benefactor, he not only supported the Bodleian, British and London libraries and countless other institutions and societies, but also, as shown here, provided smaller grants via third parties to worthy causes, in this case an annual gift of £300 to impoverished writers. De Beer built up a large private library which he dispersed in the 1980's, mostly to the University of Otago in Dunedin and donated his art collection to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
Provenance: Given by E.S. de Beer to the father of the present owner.





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