PENS THAT HAVE MADE HISTORY

Evening Star, Issue 22720, 6 August 1937, Page 10

PENS THAT HAVE MADE HISTORY

Every year the Lord Mayor of London places a new pen in the hand ot the effigy of John Stow m the Church of St. Andrew, Undershaft, in memory of Stow’s genius as a historian (writes Arthur Bridges, in the * Cape Times ). This is one of the world’s most famous pens, for visitors from all parts of the world come to see it, in fact, the pen s fame has rather overshadowed that of the man who holds it. _ Pens play their part m another annual ceremony in London. When Sir John Cass founded his school in Aidgate nearly 300 years ago he suddenly burst a blood vessel when signing certain documents and the blood stained the quill he was using. .In commemoration of this event every year 400 children attend St. Botolph’s Church, each wearing a red quill so that the event should not he forgotten. Incidentally, the governors of this school dine in a room containing all the furniture and other appointementa used by Sir Christopher .Wren when dining. One of the finest collections of historic pens is to be. found in the French Foreign Office. This collection includes the pen used to sign the Treaty of Versailles and also an outstanding pen used by the signatories to the Treaty of Paris in 1856.

It was thought that an ordinary pen would not he suitable to such an occasion and the Director of the Protocol gave instructions that a quill was to he plucked from an eagle in the Jardin des Plantes. The eagle fought while being robbed but was at last overcome, and the quill was then mounted in gold and diamonds. The Empress Eugenie owned this pen until her death. _ A pen which the French Foreign Office does not is that which was used for the signing of the Locarno Pact. Nobody knows what has happened to it, and the theory is that it was taken for a souvenir in the same way that Test players take the stumps at the end of a match. It is probably being carefully looked after in the collection of some private person, who needless to say, does not advertise his ownership. The quill used to sign the Treaty of Vienna is an heirloom in Lord Bangor’s family, and it is used for signing the register when any member of the family gets married. The pen used by King Edward when signing the South Africa Act of Union is owned by the South African Government; it was presented to the latter by King George V. soon after his accession. There were no fountain pens or typewriters in the days of the Franco-Prus-sian War of 1870, and the goose-quill used ■by Bismarck for writing his reports and memoranda during the campaign is still in existence. It has been acquired by the Oberglogua Municipal Museum' and can be seen by visitors. Few Frenchmen have asked to see it, however. The Duke of Kent owns a gold quill, which was presented to him by the Chartered Institute of Secretaries. A deputation called upon him in November, 1934, and gave him the pen, asking that he should use it for the signing of the register on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Marina. This the Duke consented to do.

There is some controversy as to who was the inventor of the first fountain pen. In 1927 Spain celebrated the centenary of the death of Francisco de Paulo Marti, claiming that he made the first pen' of this kind. , In support of the claim there exists a treatise by Paulo Marti, written in 1803, in which he describes his pen fully. That was 32 years before Schaeffer and Parker made the first fountain pen in England. On the other hand, America claims that in the person of Mr Paul Wirt, who died in January, 1935, she possessed the true inventor. Mr Wirt was a lawyer, and started his researches into fountain pens by trying to find a remedy for the blots made on legal documents by ordinary pens. After taking out a patent for his first effort he continued to experiment and put a fountain pen on the market in 1885, which meeting with success, formed > the basis of a great business. Considering what fountain pens were like only a decade or two ago, it was rather amusing to find that fountain pens were primarily intended to do away with blots, for if there was one function the first fountain pens performed with the greatest efficiency it was dropping ink all over the place. Their other fault was, of course, refusing to discharge any ink at all.