![ARCHITECTURE - ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL Manuscript planning brief for work under the supervision of Inigo Jones, [c.1631]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-10%252F16%252F25762965-1-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![ADVERTISING POSTERfor 'The Suffragette' newspaper, [c.1913-1914]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-06%252F25%252F25680656-116-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![ILLUMINATED ADDRESS – CLARA CODD Illuminated printed address signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, [1909]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-06%252F25%252F25680656-32-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![MUSIC & RECORDINGS – ETHEL SMYTH Collection of printed music, song sheets and records, [c.1911-1912]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-10%252F09%252F25680656-99-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
Lot 78
PALESTINE - BRITISH MANDATE An archive of "Confidential" administrative reports, testimonies, correspondence with General Montgomery, photographs, and ephemera, from the archive of Morris Bailey O.B.E., District Commissioner in Haifa and Samaria during the British Mandate in Palestine, c.1921-1944 (quantity)
20 November 2024, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £5,760 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
PALESTINE - BRITISH MANDATE
An archive of "Confidential" administrative reports, testimonies, correspondence with General Montgomery, photographs, and ephemera, from the archive of Morris Bailey O.B.E., District Commissioner in Haifa and Samaria during the British Mandate in Palestine, including:
Approximately 20 mimeographed or typescript reports or copy correspondence relating to Bailey's role as administrator for the British Mandate, together approximately 100 pages, a few with manuscript annotations, several countersigned by Bailey with his initials or with his purple stamp, some headed 'Secret and Personal', 'Confidential', etc., 4to, c.1921-1944
[Montgomery] Four autograph letters signed by General Montgomery ("B.L. Montgomery") to Bailey ("My dear Bailey"), relating to disagreements over how to "quell the rebellion [by the local Arab population] - which is really the only thing that matters", Montgomery uncharacteristically stating that "it was my fault" that their differences had escalated, and addressing Bailey's "complaint about the incident at the B.S.S. I... have dealt with the office concerned, he will be wiser in future...", and promising to address "municipal scavenging... Personally I object to dirty streets, and I shall therefore arrest the municipal workers whenever they go on strike", together 7 pages, paper headed 'Headquarter 8th Division, Haifa, Palestine', dated 17 January-1 April 1939; together with associated copy correspondence and reports
'Changing Palestine', from National Geographic, specially bound 40-page article, inscribed to Bailey by the author, Edward Keith-Roach, District Commissioner of North Palestine, 1934
[King Faisal I of Iraq] Items relating to the reception on 14 September 1933 of the body of King Faisal I of Iraq at Haifa, en route for Baghdad, aboard H.M.S. Despatch where "the streets... were thronged throughout the night... many thousands of Arab spectators, drawn from all parts of Palestine and from Trans-Jordan...", including 5 press photographs (one showing Morris Bailey alongside Edward Keith-Roach), and a decorative metal nail removed from the coffin (to allow it to fit onto the aeroplane to Baghdad) made into a paperweight
[Haile Selassie] Four photographs of Bailey welcoming the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie on his arrival in Haifa in 1935, together with a newspaper cutting of the occasion
Margaret Bailey. Manuscript account of her life in the Holy Land in 1920s-40s, rich in detail of every day life, engagements with the Bedouin, Arab chiefs and militia, local women, and her husband Morris' work, approximately 200 pages, ink on paper, many corrections and some loose pages inserted, contemporary cloth, 4to, c.1945; 'Holy Week in Jerusalem [in 1940]' including a 14-page account with mention of her meeting with the 7-year old King Faisal II of Iraq; and 4 other typescript articles by Margaret on local ceremonies
Ephemera, including a portrait photograph of Bailey, military commendations for his WWI actions, and newspaper cuttings relating to his service in Palestine, a collection of 10 folding maps, including sheets 1-6 of the Palestine Survey map of Palestine, c.1921-1944 (quantity)
Approximately 20 mimeographed or typescript reports or copy correspondence relating to Bailey's role as administrator for the British Mandate, together approximately 100 pages, a few with manuscript annotations, several countersigned by Bailey with his initials or with his purple stamp, some headed 'Secret and Personal', 'Confidential', etc., 4to, c.1921-1944
[Montgomery] Four autograph letters signed by General Montgomery ("B.L. Montgomery") to Bailey ("My dear Bailey"), relating to disagreements over how to "quell the rebellion [by the local Arab population] - which is really the only thing that matters", Montgomery uncharacteristically stating that "it was my fault" that their differences had escalated, and addressing Bailey's "complaint about the incident at the B.S.S. I... have dealt with the office concerned, he will be wiser in future...", and promising to address "municipal scavenging... Personally I object to dirty streets, and I shall therefore arrest the municipal workers whenever they go on strike", together 7 pages, paper headed 'Headquarter 8th Division, Haifa, Palestine', dated 17 January-1 April 1939; together with associated copy correspondence and reports
'Changing Palestine', from National Geographic, specially bound 40-page article, inscribed to Bailey by the author, Edward Keith-Roach, District Commissioner of North Palestine, 1934
[King Faisal I of Iraq] Items relating to the reception on 14 September 1933 of the body of King Faisal I of Iraq at Haifa, en route for Baghdad, aboard H.M.S. Despatch where "the streets... were thronged throughout the night... many thousands of Arab spectators, drawn from all parts of Palestine and from Trans-Jordan...", including 5 press photographs (one showing Morris Bailey alongside Edward Keith-Roach), and a decorative metal nail removed from the coffin (to allow it to fit onto the aeroplane to Baghdad) made into a paperweight
[Haile Selassie] Four photographs of Bailey welcoming the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie on his arrival in Haifa in 1935, together with a newspaper cutting of the occasion
Margaret Bailey. Manuscript account of her life in the Holy Land in 1920s-40s, rich in detail of every day life, engagements with the Bedouin, Arab chiefs and militia, local women, and her husband Morris' work, approximately 200 pages, ink on paper, many corrections and some loose pages inserted, contemporary cloth, 4to, c.1945; 'Holy Week in Jerusalem [in 1940]' including a 14-page account with mention of her meeting with the 7-year old King Faisal II of Iraq; and 4 other typescript articles by Margaret on local ceremonies
Ephemera, including a portrait photograph of Bailey, military commendations for his WWI actions, and newspaper cuttings relating to his service in Palestine, a collection of 10 folding maps, including sheets 1-6 of the Palestine Survey map of Palestine, c.1921-1944 (quantity)
Footnotes
'THERE IS CONSIDERABLE APPREHENSION, FEAR AND DISMAY' - Confidential papers shedding a light on the conflicting interests of the British administration, Arab and Jewish populations during the British Mandate of the 1920-30s, from the archive of Morris Bailey, who in 1921 was Assistant Governor to Beersheba District, and was appointed as District Commissioner to the North Palestine regions in 1933. The earlier papers mostly relate to problems of the local economy ("The Fellaheen are virtually slaves of the money-lenders... [so] that on political as well as economic grounds the solution of the Usury problem is the most pressing need of the country") and its impact on local unrest.
Bailey's insights on British governance are outlined in his response to a "personal and confidential" questionnaire (24 June 1921) issued by the High Commissioner, and again in May 1936 when he reports on the fanning of civil unrest amongst both Arabs and Jews by newspaper propaganda, and another (7 June 1936) warning about the "deep-rooted feeling of despair among all classes of Arabs that it is the intention of the Home Government to swamp them and eventually hand over the country to the Jews", and suggests that economic and political solutions should be prioritised over military ones to suppress strikes and unrest amongst the Arab population. In March 1937 his report on the security situation in Galilee Division states that "the Safad Jews are hysterical... there is considerable apprehension, fear and dismay...", and suggests measures to prevent "intimidation of both Arabs and Jews". Bailey's views were critical of the increasingly punitive measures undertaken by the military to control both Arab and Jewish insurgencies, leading to clashes with General Bernard L. Montgomery, chief of the 8th Infantry Division at Haifa. Montgomery is forced to write an apology to Bailey ("I am glad we have made it up. It was my fault", 19 Jan. 1939), whilst Harold MacMichael, the British Commissioner at Government House, writes to Bailey stating that whilst his difference of opinion with Montgomery "is perfectly legitimate... I do not like the way it is put. It is provocative" (16 January 1939).
Provenance: Morris Bailey O.B.E, District Commissioner of the Northern District of Palestine. He died whilst serving in Palestine in 1944, Edward Keith-Roach noting in his funeral eulogy that Bailey had "an unrivalled knowledge of peasant life... the many hours he spent on horseback up and down the country-side [led to] many a blood feud being settled due to this intervention and many murders prevented". Included with the lot is document with the circular ink stamps of 29 mukhtars of the "Jabal" villages of the Hebron Sub-District offering sympathy on his death, dated 6 January 1944; by descent to the present owner.