From G. H. Darwin to W. E. Darwin 10 January 1879

My dear William,

I returned yesterday after a very cold visit at M^r. Rich's at Worthing. I got down there early on Wednesday afternoon. His house he built for himself and it is a very comfortable little one well surrounded by shrubs. He says it was in this country when he came but has now villas—and especially a church—near it, very much to his annoyance. He is a very little lively old man with a grey beard, & does'nt look near his age of 75. He is a great talker & pleasant. He seems to read a great deal—including French Italian Latin & Greek—and is very advanced in his views political social & religious. He told me his family was French—properly Le Riche & that his great (or great-great) grandfather escaped from Bordeaux in a hamper at the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1684.

His great grandmother was a Bonnafous a noble Huguenot family of Provence, who also left at the same time. He showed me an old silver pencil case which belonged to his ancestor. The Bonnafous became silk weavers & his grandfather was a solicitor. It was à propos to my saying that I used to be interested in heraldry that he told me this, but without the least boastfulness. I rather think his father had no profession; at any rate he lived in Surry & M^r. R. lived partly there & partly in London until about 20 years ago when his father died at the age of 94. He M^r. R. was at Caius Coll. Camb. & was a scholar of the college, but did not go out in honours, as it was before the days of Classical Tripos. He was going to the bar but fell ill & went and lived for 8 years in Italy, where he regularly worked as an artist at Rome. He has several of his drawings hanging up & they strike me as good. He gave up art when he became ill some 20 years ago, and as he was turned out of his London house by the lease ending, he came and settled at Worthing.

He is a member of the Reform Club, but thinks most of the members a very weak-kneed lot in their liberalism.

I believe it was an article of Romanes which made him think of leaving his property to Father—he did not say so, but he showed me a passage he had copied out of the XIX Century for Oct. last.

Amongst his other unorthodoxies he has an idea of cremation & wants to be cremated. I think we ought to keep some record of who & what he was, and therefore I suggest that you return this letter to me & I will put it with my other papers & pedigrees.

Yours affectionately | G. H. Darwin