Text Online
From:
William Stevenson
To:
William Kemp
Date:
18 Nov 1851
Source of text:
Cambridge University Library (MS Add. 10252/76)
Summary:
His plans to marry.
Contributor:
Ruth Cramond
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.
His plans to marry.
He has been very busy since the sudden death of his employer shortly before his own marriage.
Describes more geological rambles in the Lammermuirs.
Thanks for letter of 11th, and the song. Sorry Kemp had been unable to visit. Gives an account of a tour in the west of Scotland.
Encloses a copy of his lecture on the geological history of the south east of Scotland/
Has been away so has not seen article in Kelso Chronicle.
Suggests walking from Kelso to Greenlaw to see James Cunningham, surveyor, and investigate the Lammermuir Hills.
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.
The Prize Committee of the RSSA would like a few more facts about WK’s method of economising on fuel for gas works.
Mr Matheson will set out for London on 8 July [presumably 1844]. It would give the writer much pleasure to see Mr M and the addressee [presumably William Kemp].
Longing for a letter from WK. Describes various excurions through Fife.
Requests WK to send samples of rock commonly found around Cupar to enable TW the more easily to identify them.
TW saw many curious formations between Carnwath and Currie and wondered whether they were glacier morains.
Longing for a letter from WK. Describes various excurions through Fife.
Describes the fire at the gas works in Cupar.
Has been on visit with Hugh Miller to Dura Den.
Has got in a controversy about tar burning with a man from Musselburgh.
Asks for some statistics about gas production.
Hopes WK will come soon to Fife.
Sends a proof. [Presumably Observations on the latest geological changes in the south of Scotland by William Kemp, Galashiels, 1844.]
Has seen WK’s article in the Kelso Chronicle about Glacier Theory.
Would like to see Bedshiel Kaimes and Dogden Moss with WK.
Responds to WK’s article ‘The latest Geological changes in the south of Scotland’ (Kemp 1843).