Gilbert usually travelled with his mother to England for the social season in autumn and, as there are no letters written to her during this time, she was most likely with him there.
Ever since he first saw the damaged English Tower in the Castle at Bodrum in May 1922, Gilbert conceived the idea of addressing the revived English Knights of St. John in London. Since it was the four hundredth anniversary of the Turkish siege of Rhodes in 1522, he wanted to take advantage of this coincidence to give an illustrated public lecture about the ruined castle and its English tower.
Gilbert presented his lecture on Tuesday 31 October for the Central Asian Society at the Royal United Service Institution in Whitehall. He began with a history of the Knights of St John in the East and, after describing the Castle of St Peter in Bodrum, identified most of the unique assemblage of arms emblazoned in the walls of the English Tower, dated to King Henry IV (1367-1413); they actually recorded the donors of the tower who were not Knights of St John but English Knights of the Garter paying for papal indulgences.
Gilbert’s host, Lt Col A.C. Yate, as Honorary Secretary had greatly increased the number of socially prominent members in the Central Asian Society, and offered one hundred free tickets to members of the British Knights of St John. The timing was not favourable for Gilbert, however.
A general British election had been called for November 15 but on October 19 a majority of Conservative Members of Parliament had voted among themselves at the Carlton Club to abandon their coalition with the Liberal Party led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George. He immediately resigned and was succeeded by the Conservative Bonar Law as Prime Minister. With such high political drama and recent political re-alignments, the election took on even more significance and the politicians who would have attended Gilbert’s lecture were too busy campaigning in their constituencies. For example, Lt General Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston, who claimed descent from Sir William Weston, the last Grand Prior of England, was actively campaigning for his seat in Parliament representing Ayr and Bute in north Scotland.
Yate asked Gilbert to submit a written version of his talk to the Journal of the Central Asian Society, which they published together with some related correspondence. These are the last available papers documenting Gilbert’s travels until he returns in January 1923 for his second year in Greece.