Copy of a letter from John H. Billinge to M. Albert Maeterlinck, Belgian Red Cross, 26 July 1918

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Copy of a letter from John H. Billinge to M. Albert Maeterlinck, Belgian Red Cross, 26 July 1918

1 B/S July 26th. 1916. Dear Mr. Maeterlinck, Belgian Red Cross I am today in receipt of your letter of the 22nd inst
I thank you. You will, I trust, forgive me commenting upon the fa
fact that your last receipt to us bears a penny stamp, as I
think it possible that the course was followed by you or some
member of your staff who was not fully aware of the position.
As a matter of fact in law there are very few exemptions from
but any receipt for a donation or subscription to an institutio
tion as the Commissionars do not enfoce a penalty if it is
given unstamped! This paragraph is extracted by me from the
13th edition of Alpe's Law on stamp duties. this being the
recognised work on such a point. I only quote this authority in
case you or members of your Committee desire to refer to it. I trust the foregoing will be accepted in the
spirit it is tendered. With the best of wishes for yourself and your work
I am Yours sincerely P.S. Will you kindly let me know the amount of the donation
received by you from Messrs. Cross's & Wirksworth, Bolton.

This letter is part of a three-sided correspondence between the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot in Dublin, the Belgian Funds Committee in Manchester, and the Belgian Red Cross in London. The Belgian Funds Committee, represented by John H. Billinge as Hon. Secretary and Treasurer, arranged for the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot to regularly ship medical items to the Belgian Red Cross in London, where they were used to treat wounded Belgian soldiers. Eleanor Dallas Pratt, Catholic wife of a respected Anglican surgeon based in Dublin, served as Hon. Secretary to the Irish War Hospital Supply Depot. The letters on behalf of the Belgian Red Cross were written by M. Albert Maeterlinck and C. E. R. Abbott. Maeterlinck was a Belgian national and returned home in January 1919. All files are kept at the Manchester Central Library. The bound volume also contains the lists all dispatched supplies and letters of thanks or supplication from soldiers and their families.

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How to cite

Letters 1916, published by the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Vienna, 2026 (https://letters1916static.github.io/letters1916-static/item__5977.html)