Name/Title
1925/Mack: RJ's letter bookScope and Content
RJ (Reggie) Mack's letter book of early 1925 contains handwritten copies of letters which RJ sent from the office of Andrew Chalmers, at 22 Minories, London E1, to his older brother Fred, who was chairman of the company.
JMG notes (April 2026): "These are very much the letters of a junior partner to a senior partner. There was a nine year age gap between the two brothers, which partly accounts for it, as does the fact that Fred had been running Andrew Chalmers for many years, including during the First World War when RJ was away in the Army.
Kathleen, RJ's wife, once revealed something of the dominance of Fred; there had been a discussion about a phone call which had made someone cry, and Kathleen said apropos of such phone calls: ‘Of course you know Fred made RJ cry once.’ It was a very revealing remark, given R.J.’s extremely strong and determined character.
Fred had embarked on the long sea voyage to Australia, after first visiting the brothers' father, William Mack, at Up Holland, north-east of Liverpool. William Mack had been born in 1855 at Collingwood Flat, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and it is likely that Fred had gone to see him about this before departing on his voyage. A letter from RJ on 2 April mentions Melbourne: '[I] am addressing this week to Fremantle as there is just a chance that mail may not catch you in Melbourne'. It seems certain that Fred would have taken the chance to visit his father's birthplace at Collingwood Flat while he was in Melbourne.
Fred appears to have been on a family trip, as RJ several times writes: 'With love to all of you'. The likeliest boat on the outbound journey (the dates fit perfectly) was the Union Steam Ship Company's RMS Aorangi. (See separate entry for the Aorangi.)
RJ's letters run from 20 January to 8 May 1925. The 8 May letter mentions Fred returning home within three weeks of the receipt of that particular letter. Letters to Australia took 4-6 weeks to arrive, so Fred may have received this one around the middle of June. RJ would not have written any letters likely to miss Fred once he embarked on the long voyage home.
However, cables could be sent and received within a matter of hours. The early months of 1925 were the first time that cables could be transmitted between Britain and Australia. There are several mentions of cables in the letters, such as on 12 March.
Although the letters almost entirely concern the family business, there are tiny bits of family information here and there, such as in the first letter, dated 20 January 1925 - "I understand Father was feeling rather concerned about you all the weekend you sailed". Fred was in poor health for some years before his early death in 1928. He predeceased his father by seven years.
This letter book cannot have been stored in London at the time of the destruction of 22 Minories on the third night of the London Blitz (9 September 1940). Many other Andrew Chalmers records were destroyed in the bombing.
This is one of only two surviving letter books of RJ's; the other runs from January 1952 to December 1953."
