To John Tyndall   14 February 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Feb 14. 1879

My dear Tyndall

I am a beggar for a little information. I have received a circular about a fund for poor Clifford, & I see that you are on the Committee.—1 I shd. like to give handsomely, but feel bound with such a lot of children not to be extravagant.—2 Now can you give me any idea what sort of sum the Committee hope to get, & whether there will be many subscribers. Do you know what any of the richer men (excluding millionaires) intend to subscribe. Without a scrap of information I find it very difficult to decide what to do.— Can you aid me even in the vaguest manner? Anyhow pray forgive me for troubling you in so odd a way.—

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
Tyndall was a member of the University College, London, committee raising a public testimonial fund for William Kingdon Clifford, who had sailed to Madeira in January 1879 suffering from pulmonary disease (Chisholm 2009, pp. 662–3).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11882,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11882