Autograph hunting became so popular in the USA, Britain, and Europe that there was quite a reaction against ‘Autographomania’ in the press, and among famous individuals who became ‘victims’ of eager collectors’ pursuit.³ Illustrator Henry Furniss complained in the Strand Magazine in 1902: ‘Is there any inoculation possible to avert autograph fever? It is a disease always prevalent in the United States, but of late years has become quite an epidemic in England’.⁴ Oscar Wilde, according to a biographer, ‘employed three secretaries while travelling through the United States: one to receive flowers; another to sign autographs; and a final unshorn attendant to clip trimmings from his locks’.⁵

When Gertrude Mabel embroidered her own autograph tablecloth they were a popular trend in Britain. Newspapers all over the country reported the phenomenon, and they became a common feature at local bazaars and fundraising events in the wider community. But what was their attraction? The Graphic Weekly Illustrated of 20th January 1900 stated: ‘The custom of signed tablecloths for special dinner parties is, I hear, likely to be fashionable. That is to say, the guests write their name in pencil, and the autographs are subsequently embroidered in facsimile of the writing, so that, in spite of washing, they become permanent’.^6. Over in Coventry, the Herald of 19th October that year describes a London club which ‘now possesses a cloth so crowded with autographs, coats-of-arms, and other devices, that there is but little space left unoccupied’.⁷

James Augustus Henry Ruthven-Murray was the eccentric Scottish editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. He was a dedicated philologist who knew 22 languages to varying levels of fluency. He’d lived in Oxford since 1884 with wife Ada and eleven children, some named to indulge his interest in ancient languages.¹²  He employed some of them at his Oxford garden studio with a team of assistants to check slips sent to him for inclusion in the OED. The Post Office even installed a special post-box by his house for submissions.

Oswyn Alexander Murray was a Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1901. He was knighted in 1910 and became Permanent Secretary at the Admiralty in 1917.¹⁴ Their colourfully named brothers Ethelbert Thomas and Aelfric Charles and sisters Rosfrith Nina, Elsie Mayflower, and Hilda Mary also signed the tablecloth.

Gertrude Mabel also managed to attract people of national or international significance to sign her tablecloth, perhaps while they were visiting Oxford. Syed Hussain Bilgrami was an Indian civil servant and educationalist, who at the time of his signature worked for the Nizam of Hyderabad. He may have been in Oxford while accompanying Indian Minister Sir Salar Jung as his private secretary on a mission to England. During the visit they were ‘greatly “lionised” and feted by the best society’ and ‘had the honour of meeting and speaking with Queen Victoria and […] other distinguished people like Disraeli, Gladstone, Lord Salisbury’.¹⁸ They also, perhaps, had the honour of meeting Gertrude Mabel Rose.

He has distinguished her tablecloth by signing his name in both English and Arabic (or Urdu or Farsi), though her attempt at embroidering the latter accurately was rather unsuccessful. Bilgrami became Director of Public Education in Hyderabad, and in 1901-2 served on the Indian Universities Commission. Later he was adviser to the All India Muslim League, aiming to secure Muslim rights in India.

Harriet Hope Glenn was an American opera singer and music teacher born in Iowa. She was a trained contralto and had good initial success singing opera and oratorio in the USA, France, and England. She counted among her friends Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) and Sir Charles Hallé, founder of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. However, after an unsuccessful marriage failed, she found she couldn’t support herself by singing.

Highlighting the difficulties of a professional woman alone at the time, she hints at her distress in a telling interview in The Sketch in 1895, with accompanying photograph. Asked why she wasn’t performing so much, ‘The sweet singer smiled sadly’, explaining ‘The last six years of my life have been so overwhelmed by sorrow that I have had no heart to put the necessary spirit and enthusiasm into my work’.²⁰  By the 1901 Census, aged 38, she was living in Marylebone in London, described as a teacher of vocal music. According to experts quoted by a recent USA historian, Hope had a ‘rarely beautiful contralto voice’ with ‘great flexibility and power’. She was ‘winsome of face [with] graceful physical presence’ and was ‘a celebrity in 19th century opera houses in America and across Europe’.²¹

Was she performing at a theatre in Oxford? We’ll never know how Gertrude Mabel met her or if she actually did, but Hope has literally taken ‘centre stage’ on the tablecloth. It’s hard to imagine that this demonstrative and incongruously large signature emblazoned right across the middle of the cloth isn’t evidence that it was signed in person. Harry Furniss makes an apt comment in his article in The Strand in 1902: ‘nearly all actresses write a bold hand. Talk of “filling the stage”, I cannot recall any of our charming actresses – particularly those hailing from America – that would not fill a paper equal in size to the largest stage with their autograph alone!’²² Perhaps Hope was at a social gathering where the cloth was being signed?  If they witnessed such showmanship, imagine the reaction of Maida the future missionary or the Indian politician!

Finally, meet singer-songwriter, poet, and playwright Théodore Botrel; born in Dinan in 1868, he specialised in Breton popular songs.²⁴ Botrel signs the tablecloth ostentatiously with his surname, the place name Léssay in Normandy, and the phrase ‘Ma Doné! Ma Bro!’  The meaning of his exuberant quote is unclear. Though ‘Ma Bro’ is Breton for ‘My Country’, ‘Ma Doné’ appears difficult to translate.²⁵

From his photos, it is clear that Botrel wanted to make an impression. Later in his career he sang for WWI troops in France, when The New York Times of 18^th July 1915 said of him: ‘Even before he opens his mouth you are interested and attracted by his noble and frank bearing. His features are of classical regularity, his complexion pale, his forehead wide and high like that of a deep thinker. Beneath a thick moustache one sees clean-cut lips, and his eyes, keen and penetrating, also have a faraway look’. ²⁶

Botrel himself was a great self-publicist. His friend Émile Hamonic produced a series of postcards with scenes from Botrel’s songs and plays, photos of the great man and his signature, which were widely circulated. Did Gertrude Mabel trace from one of these postcards? The tablecloth signature is certainly very like that on one card showing him in Breton costume, complete with that wonderful ‘thick moustache’ and ‘faraway look’.

In 1904 Botrel was the Breton representative at a Pan-Celtic Congress in Caernarfon and could have performed or visited Oxford, so perhaps Gertrude Mabel did actually meet him. If she did, we have to hope she heard him perform. His songs are still being sung and recorded.²⁷