From Kipling to Kitchener, the Edwardian autograph hunter whose collection is set to sell for thousands

Laid up in bed for three months with a broken hip, 13-year-old George Fellowes was determined not to bow to his misfortune.

Instead the middle-class Edwardian teenager set to work on a mammoth letter-writing campaign to the great and the good of turn-of-the century Britain.

The result was a collection of 'Get well soon' messages from a dazzling array of figures all around the world including Lord Kitchener, then the commander-in-chief fighting the Boer War, and the explorer Captain Robert Scott.

Housed in a dusty old album, the 1902 collection is set to fetch Fellowes' great-great grandchildren thousands of pounds when they are auctioned tomorrow.

Starting each letter with an apology for his handwriting - blaming his injury for his poor penmanship - master Fellowes always ended by asking for an autograph.

The delighted schoolboy, from Derby, would wait impatiently in his bed each morning as his amazed nurses brought him the latest replies from the likes of cricketer WG Grace, Scout movement founder Robert Baden-Powell and even Australian Prime Minister Edward Barton.

Celebrated philanthropist and anti-trade-slave campaigner William Wilberforce, and author Rudyard Kipling also took time to wish the youngster well.

Powerful: A reply letter from Lord Kitchener was written to the teenager

Auctioneer Charles Hanson, who uncovered the collection, said: 'It represents an amazing feat by one young boy with time on his hands.

'Assembling something remotely comparable today, even in the age of the worldwide web and instant communication, would take some doing.

'Many of the people who wrote back to Cyril were the A-listers of the age - people of enormous power and what passed for celebrity back then.

Standard request: George's standard letter to the rich and famous

'He relied on nothing but his own nerve, something of a sympathy vote and the recipients' good grace - and he was rarely disappointed.'

Well-to-do Cyril was bed-bound in a Harley Street clinic when he wrote the letters using addresses mostly supplied by a well-connected uncle.

The youngster, whose middle-class education had given him a winning turn of phrase, wrote: 'I hope, sir, you will not think of me as a rude boy.

'Please excuse my bad writing, as I am in bed, having hurt my hip. I hope you will favour me with your autograph, if it is not too much to ask of you.'

Hero: A much-treasured reply from the heroic explorer Captain Scott and his navigator Albert Armitage

Some of the most famous people of the day offered wise words with their best wishes - including the great Victorian artist William Powell Frith.

Frith - renowned for his portraits and narratives of the era -  told Cyril: 'I have pleasure in sending you my autograph and a little advice with it.

'In applying for autographs a stamped envelope should always be sent for the reply. But this is not intended as a hint to you to send me one.'

The Album: The leather-covered front has helped keep the letters in good shape

Mr Hanson, of Derby-based Hanson's Auctioneers, said: 'The people who received the letters obviously felt honour-bound to write back to Cyril.

'They clearly had sympathy for this imaginative lad who was laid up in hospital - although his relations describe him as a cheeky little so-and-so.'

Sadly, having fully recovered from his hip injury, Fellowes did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his labours or put his inventiveness to further use.

In 1913, having left Britain for India, he caught blackwater fever, a form of malaria, while working on a rubber plantation and died at the age of just 25.

His collection is set to fetch several thousand pounds at an auction in Lichfield, Staffs, on Thursday.

Letter: Captain Robert Scott, the Antarctic explorer writing his journal in his expedition hut. The legendary explorer took time to reply to the youngster

Mr Hanson, a regular on TV's Bargain Hunt, added: 'Some of these autographs are precious alone, so the full set is understandably highly desirable.'

Other well-wishers who wrote to Cyril Fellowes included: Sir Henry Irving, first actor ever to receive knighthood, Henry Rider Haggard, adventure novelist and agricultural reformer, and Edward Tennyson Reed, Punch cartoonist for more than 40 years.

Many of the ink-penned replies - notably Sir Henry Irving's - were virtually illegible, whilst Tennyson Reed went one further by including a personal caricature for Cyril, showing a typical gent doffing his top hat in respect.

Baden-Powell thanked Cyril for his 'kind letter', while military artist John Charlton wrote: 'I hope this will do for you and you will soon be well again.'

Most, like the Bishop of Ely, Lord Alwyne Compton - a man celebrated by Edwardians for his 'unaffected modesty' - kept things to-the-point.

Addressing his reply to 'My dear Cyril', the Bishop wrote: 'You say - or rather write - that you would like to have my autograph, so I will send it to you.

'I hope your long rest, for it must seem to you long, will quickly get you up again.' He signed simply 'Alwyne' - a lord's prerogative - and that was that.