WELLS, H. G. (Herbert George Wells, 1866-1946). Autograph card signed to Margaret Haig Thomas, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda, concerning a "Woman's Communist Party".
WELLS, H. G. (Herbert George Wells, 1866-1946). Autograph card signed to Margaret Haig Thomas, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda, concerning a "Woman's Communist Party".
An autograph correspondence card, written and signed by H. G. Wells in black ink, addressed to Margaret Haig Thomas, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda (1883-1958). One side, approximately 88 x 114mm, on Wells's printed stationery headed "47, Chiltern Court, Clarence Gate, N.W.1.", with telephone number Welbeck 5544. Dated 19 October 1932.
Wells invites Lady Rhondda to tea eight days later, evidently to resume an intriguing political conversation begun at an earlier meeting:
Dear Lady Rhondda
Could you come & have tea
on Oct 27th. 4.30. I want to talk
about that Woman's Communist Party
you wouldn't tell me about the other day.
Yours
H. G. Wells
A particularly engaging piece of unpublished correspondence between two prominent figures in interwar British political and intellectual life. Although internationally celebrated as the author of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds and other pioneering works of scientific romance, Wells was also a prolific socialist writer and advocate of large-scale social and political reconstruction. The card was written in the year in which he published The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind, an extensive survey of contemporary society and the prospects for a rationally organised future.
Lady Rhondda was a former militant suffragette, businesswoman, feminist campaigner and proprietor and editor of the influential weekly review Time and Tide. She founded the Six Point Group in 1921 and remained one of the foremost British advocates of women's legal, professional and economic equality between the wars. Time and Tide combined discussion of women's rights with politics, economics, literature and international affairs and provided a forum for contributors of differing political persuasions.
The two were already engaged in a direct debate about women and society during 1932. Lady Rhondda had written to Wells on 29 July 1932 concerning his treatment of women in The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind; further correspondence from her followed in March 1933. These letters survive among the Wells papers at the University of Illinois, whose substantial archive contains more than 65,000 letters received by Wells as well as diaries, manuscripts and other papers. The present card therefore belongs within an identifiable and continuing intellectual exchange rather than representing a merely conventional social invitation.
The precise identity of the "Woman's Communist Party" has not been established. Wells's use of "that" and his remark that Lady Rhondda "wouldn't tell" him about it show that the subject had been introduced during a previous private conversation and had sufficiently aroused his curiosity for him to arrange a further meeting devoted to it. The wording need not represent the official title of a national political party: it might refer to a local group, an informal women's communist network, a projected organisation or a private shorthand already understood by the correspondents. Women's communist organisations using this or closely related terminology are historically recorded in Britain, so the phrase should not be dismissed as necessarily imaginary or humorous; however, no evidence presently connects this particular reference securely with any one organisation.
The date is especially suggestive. The card was written on 19 October, inviting Lady Rhondda to Wells's home for tea at 4.30 p.m. on 27 October 1932. The emphatic purpose—"I want to talk about..."—and the lightly teasing wording provide a vivid glimpse of the private political discussions taking place around Lady Rhondda and the editorial circle of Time and Tide during the Depression. It may relate to information obtained through her feminist, journalistic or political contacts, but the available evidence does not justify identifying the subject more precisely.
An appealing and unusually substantive H. G. Wells autograph, combining a complete signed message with a distinctive political reference and documenting his continuing exchange with one of the most influential British feminist editors of the interwar period.