Letter to the Queen's Secretary

Last week I posted a picture of an envelope I sent to the Queen's Secretary and left you hanging as to why I was doing this.

James had to do an presentation to his class about himself including family traditions, goals, family history etc. and I remember my father in law telling me something about his Grandfather and his special handwriting and so we rang Pop to talk about it and he also sent us a book which was written about his Grandfather (ie James's Great Great Grandfather).

As it turns out that James' Great Great Grandfather was born in England in 1881 and immigrated to Western Australian in 1912 with his family.  He was well known for his "copy work work" and was commissioned by the WA Education Department to hand write the "copy books" for the school children to learn how to write.  The copy books that were printed with the handwriting on one line and then underneath was a blank line and the school children copied his handwriting.  These books were used in WA up until the late 1960's.

He was also a famous photographer for the WA Newspapers and painted as well.  He also was famous as a Miniaturist and wrote "The Lords Prayer" on a piece of paper the size of a Threepence.

All of this is so interesting and this is where my letter comes into it.  My father in law also told me that his Grandfather was commissioned by the WA Government to hand write the official letter of invitation from the WA Government to the Queen to invite her to come to Western Australia.  This invitation was hand written in 1953 for the Queen's visit in 1954.  When we were talking he said he would love to get his hands on a copy of it so I decided to write to the Queen's Secretary explaining the whole situation to see if this invitation was in the archives and whether it was possible to get a copy.  I have no idea if they would keep these documents or if a copy of it still exists however I thought it was worth the $2.75 stamp and 5 minutes of my time to draft up the letter.  I didn't tell my Father In Law I was doing this, I just thought I would post it and see what happens.

He also had a copy of a Christmas Card and envelope that was post marked 1958 from his Grandfather.  It was posted to Pop's workplace however he had since left that workplace and a colleague of his got the envelope and when he saw the writing he could not bring himself to cross off the address part of the envelope and scribble "forward to the new address" so this fellow went and bought an envelope and put this envelope into it and posted it on to my Father in Law so you can see that his handwriting was very special.  The envelope and Christmas card is 57 years old and was written by James Great Great Grandfather.  I love discovering things like this.

That's the story about writing my letter to the Queen's Secretary....wouldn't it be awesome if the document did exist and I could get a photocopy of it for my Father in Law.  Any interesting family history in your family.