Ɛpsilon

From W. E. Darwin   10 July [1878]1

Bank

July 10

My dear Father

I took Mr (not Dr) Marsh to the photographer’s shop, & bought one by Mrs C. for him & he bought another.2

A parcel will be at Orpington in a day or so containing the 2 photographs and a gray paper mount He wants you to sign on the gray mounted photoph. and also on the separate gray mount, and then return all three to him at:

Palace Hotel

Buckingham Gate

London

He is a pleasant man & I hope to see the collection when I am over.3 There 2 busts by Pinker at the Academy; he seems to me to be able to make a good likeness of his model, but I should say he was quite common place without being vulgar.4

We had two very pleasant Days at Down only I wish Sara had been brisk5 | Your affect son | W. E. Darwin

I send a pamphlet on6

You owe me 11s/6d7

CD annotations

Top of letter: ‘M | Charl | Charles’ ink
1
The year is established by the references to Othniel Charles Marsh and Henry Richard Hope Pinker (see nn. 2 and 4, below).
2
Marsh had visited Down on 9 July 1878, when Sara and William Erasmus Darwin were also there; William left Down on the 9th, possibly with Marsh (n. 5, below, and letter to O. C. Marsh, 5 July [1878]). The photograph of CD purchased by William for Marsh was probably the one taken by Julia Margaret Cameron.
3
Marsh, professor of palaeontology at Yale University, had inherited a fortune from his uncle George Peabody in 1869; this allowed him to amass a spectacular collection of fossils. Before this, Marsh had persuaded Peabody to fund a museum at Yale; Marsh, who became the Peabody Museum’s director, donated his personal collection to the museum in 1898. (ANB.) William and Sara Darwin sailed for the US on 14 September 1878 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).
4
Pinker hoped to sculpt a bust of CD for the Royal Institution of Great Britain (see letter to William Spottiswoode, 7 July [1878]). He had trained at the Royal Academy of Arts and exhibited work in the summer exhibitions held there (Mapping the practice and profession of sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk (accessed 15 February 2017)).
5
According to Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242), Sara and William arrived in Down on 5 July; William left on 9 July and Sara on 10 July. William refers to Sara’s being slightly unwell.
6
The pamphlet has not been identified.
7
This was possibly the cost of the photograph by Cameron (see n. 2, above). According to Cameron’s price catalogue of 1868, the cost of her portrait photographs ranged from 7s. 6d. to around 14s., with autographed ones selling for more (see J. Cox and Ford 2003, p. 3).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11597F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11597F