The William Kemp Collection
Epsilon’s William Kemp Collection comprises 80 letters (1840-1861) from the scientific and Scottish Borders community to William Kemp (1788-1864). Kemp was an engineer and businessman, manager of the Galashiels Gas Company, and a prominent local geologist. The collection includes a series of letters from Charles Darwin and Robert Chambers.
The letters were collated and bound into a single volume, and taken to Australia by John Kemp, a water engineer and son of William Kemp, when immigrating on SS Great Britain to Victoria in 1868. A full transcription of the collection was drafted in the 1980s in Australia by Ruth Cramond, a family connection. The collection was donated to Cambridge University Library in 2018 and has now been fully conserved and digitised.
Transcriptions, edited to Darwin Correspondence Project principles and practices, and images of the correspondence between Kemp and Darwin, together with a more detailed biography of William Kemp are available from the Darwin Correspondence Project website.
Images of all letters in the collection, including images of the original bound volume, are available from the Cambridge University Digital Library website.
Thanks for WK’s letter of the 27th. RC has examined the country between Melrose and Kelso.
Thanks for information about Yarrow terraces. Does not think WK’s objections to the lake theory of Upper Tweeddale insurmountable.
Requests the measurements of WK’s Eildon Terraces be sent to RC at the BAAS meeting at Oxford.
Thanks for the measurements of WK’s Eildon Terraces, but would like the measurements of the beaches below No 9 more precisely.
Thanks for the measurements of the intermediate Eildon terraces.
Will lay WK’s paper on the economising of fuel in gas works before the Royal Scottish Society of Arts when it meets the following winter.
Asks WK to send the new measurements of the Eildon terraces. RC has found terraces in Fife.
The Glenroy terraces match WK’s measurements of the terraces on the Tweed.
Would like to spend the following Tuesday reviewing the Eildon terraces with WK.
Wants WK to undertake a new survey of the hill.
Has found a fine terrace at Middleton Moor.
The measurements differ to a startling degree. Asks WK to engage the professional surveyor at Melrose to survey the heights again.
The surveyor’s report has left RC even more puzzled and he may have to give up the Eildons altogether.
Has discovered Mr Mitchell’s assistant added in 28′ erroneously, but that still leaves anomalies.
The measurements are looking better, but he would still like more checks made.
Has now authoratative datum for height of Hawick Railway above the sea.