“Mr Hall’s case was serious, he declared. He then announced gravely that he was the King of England. “My name is Hall,” he explained, “and I am the direct descendant of good King Hal, otherwise King Henry VIII. The man now occupying the throne of England is a usurper and I request you to order him to step down.” He stood proudly by the window and showed me his profile silhouetted against the London sky. “You see the likeness?” he demanded haughtily. He reminded me a little of the late Sir Oswald Mosley striking one of his more heroic poses but of no one else in particular. I murmured that I would have to charge him a substantial fee for looking into so important a case, and he left.
Mr Albert Stanton, judging by his handwriting, was well educated and in his right mind, but his letter of enquiry, which came to me as the herald who happened to be on duty that morning, was addressed to “The College of Alms” and, as might have been expected, asked if he could be sent some alms please, preferably in the form of gold ingots. Although an unwritten rule of the College was that all letters of enquiry must be answered, I did not feel it necessary to answer this one since I felt the writer was either a silly joker or a poor deluded crackpot.
David Greig, the founder of the well-known chain of grocery stores of his name, used to wear the unusual combination of a morning coat and a bowler hat, at least when he came to see me. Entering my office, which he did many times, he would remove his bowler hat with a flourish and say, brightly, “Ere we are agine!” No offence meant but I suppose he could have been called a figure of fun, though he was certainly a successful one. Besides being always jovial he was charmingly straightforward and direct – a spade’s a spade man in fact. You could not help liking him.
He wanted to know where he came from and who his forebears were. No snobbery about it whatever; just genuine interest. He could trace his family back, he told me, as far as his father, and “Where do we go from there?” he asked. This, I am happy to say, was one of those comparatively rare occasions when things go genealogically very well. Research not only brought to light many details of his not very remarkable forebears back to about 1680 but also revealed that his ancestor at that time was, like him, a grocer.
At the very top of the league of merchant princes was Gordon Selfridge, who came from the United States and set up his great store in Oxford Street. It became for some years the most talked-of shop in London. His Christmas and other street-decorations were so elaborate and colourful that people used to come from all over the country to see them. When King George V’s 1935 Jubilee Celebrations were being planned, Mr Selfridge resolved to make a specially grand display, with the British empire as the theme, and he sent an aide to the College of Arms to enquire what could be done by way of Empire heraldry that would give his designs an enhanced Imperial flavour. By chance the aide fell into my hands, which is to say that I was on duty in the Public Office at the College of Arms when he called, and the next thing I knew was that I was in Mr Gordon Selfridge’s office in the heart of his Palace of Merchandise in Oxford Street. I never used to go out of the College precincts to see those who wished to consult me professionally. They came to see me. The only exceptions were the Sovereign, the Sovereign’s Private Secretary, the Prime Minister, the Earl Marshal, the infirm, and the very, very rich. I felt Gordon Selfridge fell easily into the last of these categories.
The plans which Mr Selfridge showed me were magnificent, and what he finally requested me to do was to provide him with pictures of a large number of Empire Coats of Arms, flags, and other heraldic bravura, which would make his decorative scheme not only more meaningful but more splendid and colourful than it already was.
Gordon Selfridge, a shortish, smart, sprightly, crisp, incisive, apparently electrically activated figure with wavy white hair, his general appearance not unlike that of the great Welsh Wizard of former days, David Lloyd-George, was a man of instant decisions. He asked my advice, then, before I could reply, told me what he was going to do. But I found him amiable and, being a phenomenon, psychologically very interesting.”
The Hon, Sir George Bellew, KCB, KCVO, KStJ,FSA.