An archive of hundreds of letters revealing the romantic story of Jack and Dorothy who fell in love immediately after the First World War.

Jack Robson (John Osborn Robson) (6th June 1894 – 4th April 1978) was, it seems, a hopeless romantic. On the 20th July 1919 he started a long string of letters (more than 300) to his sweetheart. She was Dorothy Grist (20th June 1895 – 6th November 1986).

Jack had spent some of the 1914-1918 war with the fledgling Royal Flying Corps (later to become the Royal Air Force in April 1918). During the war he started working with a firm of London stockbrokers of which his father, John Ajurere Robson (9th January 1864 – 17th October 1943), was a senior partner. The firm was Ferguson, Clark, Robson and Ross of Angel Court at the London Stock Exchange.

The Robson family, had, like most in Britain, experienced personal loss during the war. Edward Fawsett Robson (16 December 1898 – 18th May 1918), Jack’s brother, died, aged 19, of his injuries six months before the end of hostilities.

At the time of writing to Dorothy (Iris Dorothy Mary Grist), Jack was living at home (33 Kensington Park Gardens, London W11) with his parents, other family members and house staff.

Dorothy, meanwhile, was staying at various locations throughout Great Britain (details here).  It would seem that Dorothy’s work required she lived at numerous addresses for the duration of the letters.

The pair had met on the 25th April 1919, about three months before the start of these letters. Jack wrote reminding Dorothy, “I like getting your letters you darling, for it is three months today since we met. Who’d have thought this would have been going on?” (letter written 25 July 1919 here and here). It appears that Dorothy proposed marriage to Jack in July 1919, just before the start of these letters.

The letters sometimes refer to ‘the boys’. They are Jack’s younger brothers, Alan Boyd Robson (later The Rev Alan Boyd Robson) (1907-1986) and Kenneth (later Sir Kenneth) Robson (1909-1978). Jack clearly adores his brothers despite them appearing to be quite a handful!

In November 2018, I acquired this large collection of letters from an online auction website. These pages, hardly touched since they were opened nearly 100 years ago. Telling the real-life story of two young people living geographically separate lives in a nation changed forever by the ravages of, to then, the worst conflict in history.  The bond between Dorothy and Jack, the glue that held them together, pours out from letters. Starting as they do as a fresh episode in their lives (as Jack puts it in his first letter) and ending as preparations are well underway for their marriage in June 1921.

Without doubt this collection is an amazing personal, blow-by-blow account of their lives and life in immediate post-war Britain.

Each page and envelope are now being scanned and transcribed. Each letter being posted here and will take time to digitise and transfer. Some envelopes are temptingly unopened – at the time of compiling this work I have decided not to open them (this might change). Why some are sealed and unopened is currently a mystery.

Be patient, as the lives of Jack and Dorothy unravel.

1919 is complete – December 6 2018