CHAU4035 Antique double page FULLY hand written 1880 Victorian letter from Dame Agnes Weston GBE (Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire). She was the founder of the Sailors Rest Institute and this is on their official headed paper which I have scanned both pages so you can read all the contents - page 2 has a small tear to the side - and has places on reverse that appear to be places of residue from former album storage but I cant be sure - its just the other side - the first page bar a little edge ageing and light handling is very good condition indeed - You wont find a better Dame Agnes Weston autograph opportunity than this fully hand written letter from circa 150 years ago .. At auction it included the original typed version of the letter which I have typed for you below....
"To Dear Mrs Fox... I am always glad to help any good work when I can do it, consistently with that which God has given me to do, and if you could arrange a meeting I suppose drawing room at which I can give an account of this work among the sailors and try different to interest friends. I would gladly address the Ladies Temperance Association in the evening I cannot at present fix any date as I do not know what my movements will be. But as soon as I do I will write. I could not by any possibility come before the 5th March as my time is filled up past that date. Perhaps you will kindly let me know what length of time you can give me in which to execute my promise. With kind regards. Believe me. Very truly yours. Agnes E Weston. "
Dame Agnes Elizabeth Weston, GBE (26 March 1840 23 October 1918) was an English philanthropist noted for her work with the Royal Navy. For over twenty years, she lived and worked among the sailors of the Royal Navy. The result of her powerful influence is evidenced in the widespread reform which took place in the habits of hundreds of men to whom her name was a talisman for good. In her day, one man in six in the navy was a total abstainer. Weston's work included her monthly letters to sailors, Ashore and Afloat, which she edited, and the "Sailors' Rests", which she established in Portsmouth. She was the first woman given a full ceremonial Royal Navy funeral.
In 1868, she took up hospital visiting and parish work in Bath, and through beginning a correspondence with a seaman who asked her to write to him, developed into the devoted friend of sailors, superintendent of the Royal Naval Temperance Society, and co-founder (with Sophia Wintz) of three Royal Sailors' Rests (two in Plymouth and one in Portsmouth), or clubs for sailors, by the start of the First World War. She published a monthly magazine, Ashore and Afloat, and established temperance societies on naval ships by personal visits to each ship (such as HMS Topaze) at a time when every ship had a grog pot and sailors were issued a daily rum ration. She published her memoirs My Life Among the Bluejackets in 1909.
Weston served as Superintendent of Work among Sailors for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and was the President of the Plymouth Branch of the British Women's Temperance Association.
In June 1918, her work for the Royal Navy was publicly recognised when she was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).[5] She received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Glasgow University. On her death at age 78 in Devonport she became the first woman given a full ceremonial Royal Navy funeral.
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