This is an original pencil drawing bookplate with white highlights on sepia recycled card. The drawing, by Steve Teasdale, features the professionally mounted genuine wartime signature of Archibald Sinclair mounted underneath his portrait. The words Air Ministry, in the hand of Sinclair, are also mounted underneath the signature. Sinclair served on the Western Front during the First World War, in 1915 as aide de camp to J. E. B. Seely who commanded the Canadian Cavalry Brigade. He rose to the rank of Major in the Guards Machine Gun Regiment.
After Winston Churchill resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty, Sinclair served as his second-in-command when Churchill took up command at the beginning of 1916 of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
When Churchill formed an all-party coalition government in 1940, Sinclair entered the cabinet as Secretary of State for Air. During the May 1940 British war cabinet crisis after the fall of France he sided with Churchill against Lord Halifax's plan to seek a negotiated settlement with Nazi Germany mediated by Fascist Italy.
Sinclair's first task was to work with the Royal Air Force and Hugh Dowding in planning the Battle of Britain.
This is a very rare Battle of Britain related signature which enhance any Battle of Britain collection or book.