From:
Adam Sedgwick
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
4 Sept 1831
Source of text:
DAR 204: 65
Summary:
Reports on his geological work in N. Wales since he and CD parted. Answers CD’s queries.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Adam Sedgwick
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
18 Sept 1831
Source of text:
DAR 204: 66
Summary:
Is glad of CD’s appointment and hopes it will be a source of happiness and honour.
Answers a query about books.
Suggests CD go to Geological Society, present himself, as AS’s friend, to William Lonsdale and study the Society’s collection.
Tells CD of his work in Wales; includes a diagram and explanations.
Ramsay’s death a grievous loss.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin; William Buckland; Adam Sedgwick; John Phillips; William Whewell; Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st baronet; Charles Lyell, 1st baronet; Charles Stokes; William John Hamilton; Edward Stanley; Richard Owen; William Clift; Charles Babbage; John Bostock; Peter Mark Roget; John Taylor; Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, 2d Marquess of Northampton; William John Broderip
To:
Thomas Spring Rice
Date:
[before 7 July 1838]
Source of text:
House of Commons papers; accounts and papers, 1837/38, XXXVI, 307
Summary:
Express their concern that the offer for sale to the British Museum, by G. A. Mantell and Thomas Hawkins, of two valuable collections, has been declined.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
21 [Dec 1838]
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library Add 7652 IB: 175
Summary:
CD informs AS of the position of the Council of the Geological Society on recommending J. B. Jukes for a geological survey of Newfoundland. Feels Jukes’s application would have best chance of success if Sedgwick, his Professor at Cambridge, wrote a letter.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
11 Oct [1850]
Source of text:
Rensselaer Libraries, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Gerald and Sue Friedman manuscript collection MC 72 Box 1)
Summary:
Thanks AS for a copy of his book, Discourse [on the studies of the University, 5th ed.].
Thinking of not sending his eldest son [William] to a classical school.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
24 Aug [1859]
Source of text:
Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
Summary:
Sorry to hear of AS’s poor health.
Would like to attend Aberdeen meeting [BAAS, 1859] but is unfit for so great an exertion. Has been told he has "suppressed gout".
Pleased that AS remembers their 1831 geological trip, which made CD appreciate the noble science of geology.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
11 Nov [1859]
Source of text:
Sotheby’s, New York (dealers) (13 December 2018, lot 235)
Summary:
Has told Murray to send AS a copy of Origin. CD’s conclusion is diametrically opposed to that which AS has often advocated, but he assures AS he does not send his book out of a spirit of bravado.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Adam Sedgwick
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
24 Nov 1859
Source of text:
DAR 98: B17–18
Summary:
Thanks CD for the Origin; AS has read the book "with more pain than pleasure". CD has deserted "the true method of induction" and many of his wide conclusions are "based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved". His "grand principle – natural selection" is "but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
26 Nov [1859]
Source of text:
The British Library (Egerton MS 3020: 1–3)
Summary:
CD expected AS’s "strong disapprobation" of his book [Origin] but is grieved "to have shocked a man whom I sincerely honour". Has worked "like a slave" on the subject for over 20 years and is not conscious that bad motives have influenced the conclusions at which he has arrived. CD does not think the book will be mischievous and "if I be wrong I shall soon be annihilated". CD may have written too confidently from feeling confident that no "false theory would explain so many classes of facts".
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Adam Sedgwick
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 Oct 1868
Source of text:
DAR 177: 129
Summary:
Congratulates CD on election of his son [George] as a Fellow of Trinity College.
Describes his ill health.
Invites CD to visit Cambridge.
[Letter dated November in error.]
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
13 Oct 1868
Source of text:
Mrs Romney Sedgwick (private collection)
Summary:
Thanks AS for congratulations on George Darwin’s Trinity fellowship.
Reminiscence of his geological tour of North Wales with AS and the encouraging messages received during the Beagle voyage.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Adam Sedgwick
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
30 May 1870
Source of text:
DAR 177: 128
Summary:
Writes of CD’s recent visit to Cambridge and the joy it gave him.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Adam Sedgwick
Date:
1 June [1870]
Source of text:
Stanford University Department of Special Collections (Stephen Jay Gould Collection, M1437, Box 958)
Summary:
Thanks AS for his kindness towards himself and his family. Looks back with great satisfaction to his last visit ("as it will probably prove") to Cambridge.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project