The date is 15 February 1913 and Stanley Nicholson Babb, who had just celebrated his 39th birthday 21 days prior, was writing to a dear friend by the name of Percy Edsall regarding some business they had to conduct.

Percy Edsall (who is the great-grandfather of the owner of the following letter) was secretary to a number of arts societies in London, in the early 1900’s, probably through to about 1928. One of the societies was the Society of Sculptors. Through the societies Edsall got to know many artists and eventually started an art society himself.

Stanley has 3 purposes to his letter.
1. To order tickets for him and a guest, a fellow sculptor by the name of Thomas Mewburn Crook. Thomas had a work on display at the same event as Stanley and they are listed on the same page (61) of the Event Brochure.
2. To stagger the renewals for the manifold societies that he was a member of to be friendlier to his pocketbook.
3. To convince Percy to sit one more time for a sculpture he was doing of Percy.

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As a reminder, Stanley was a famous sculptor who had created some of the statues outside the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, amongst many other works.

He is a member of the Tree we refer to as Devon Pedigree (Barnstaple 1711) 04, 15, 34 in Northwest Devon.

To refresh your memory, take a look at my previous post on Stanley which shows off some of his greatest works.

Stanley Nicholson Babb – Sculptor

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The Letter

The letter from Stanley was written to Percy in February 1913 from his address, in Baron’s Court, W (West London) and below I have copied some of the contents of the letter. As this is a personal letter, the entire contents were not shared. But Percy’s great-grandchild wanted to send the beginning and the end of the letter as they expected it would be of interest to see his handwriting and signature.

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Excerpts of the Letter

My dear Edsall,

I shall want two tickets for the supper [at the Royal Academy]- [T.M.] Crook is coming as my guest.

As I think it’s quite time I got out of debt, do you mind if I mix up payments to different societies on one cheque – I hope it won’t make additional work for you.

I enclose a cheque for £3.0.6 – made payable to you.

Kind regards from us both,

Yours sincerely,
S. Nicholson Babb

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Background

£3.0.6 – in old money, this was 3 pounds, zero shillings and sixpence. This equates to £450 ($560 USD) in 2023.

Royal Academy – this would have been the summer exhibition that was held every year and open to all artists to enter, but not all entries were accepted. I have looked through the successful entries for that year and the following year, but the bust is not on show. He does however have Leda – relief marble entered (https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/exhibition-catalogue/ra-sec-vol145-1913) and from memory I think he has something else entered in the following year too.

Stay tuned, there is more to know about Stanley Nicholson Babb!