Ɛpsilon

From E. A. Darwin   17 [1877?]1

17th

Dear Charles

Will you send the address of Francis Darwin if you have it.2 On comparing dates I find that my Father cannot have been the Exōr (he was 18 when W A D died) & so I went to Emma Galton & find there was a R. Waring D—brother of W. Alvey D—who must have been the Exōr.3 Thank goodness I have nothing to do with it.

Yours E. D.

P.S. George need not bring his Pedigree4

2nd PS if you dont know the address dont bother as I know his Solr.5

3rd P.S. Have you yet heard the great news & what do think of it.6

1
The date is conjectured from the position of this item in the archive, in a fairly consistently date-ordered series, between letters from 1874 and letters from 1877, and from an early archivist’s mark dating it 1877.
3
William Alvey Darwin and Robert Waring Darwin of Elston (1724–1816) were brothers of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), CD and Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s grandfather. The Elston estate was inherited by William Alvey Darwin’s son William Brown Darwin, and on his death by William Brown Darwin’s son Robert Alvey Darwin. Robert Alvey Darwin died a few years later leaving the estate to his sister’s husband Francis Rhodes, on condition he change his surname to Darwin. Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848) was CD and Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s father. Emma Sophia Galton was another grandchild of Erasmus Darwin. The reason why the executorship of William Alvey Darwin’s will was in question is not known.
4
George Howard Darwin had been interested in genealogy since at least 1866 (see Correspondence vol. 14, letter from G. H. Darwin, 11 October [1866]).
5
Francis Rhodes Darwin’s solicitor has not been identified.
6
The ‘great news’ has not been identified.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10754,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10754