Ɛpsilon

To Horace Darwin   1 January 1880

My dear Horace—

My memory is so bad that I am not sure whether I wrote to the Bank, about your payments. I agreed to pay you the same allowance as before viz £300 (Aunt Catherines money does not come into consideration) & as £5000 was transferred to you, & this produces 200£ per annum, I ought to pay you 100£ viz 50 on Jan 1 & on July 1— Is this all right?1 Does not the £5000 produce £200 less income tax?— Please get your banking book & see whether 5.0£ has been placed to your account. & let me hear.— My overplus shall be divided in 10 or 14 days.—2

Many thanks for charming little compasses—3 May I trust you to make memorandum that I owe you for them, so that I cd pay whenever you come here.—

What a nice few days we had at Christmas.—

Your affectionate Father | C. Darwin

Jan 1.— 1880—

1
CD placed £5000 of stock in trust for Horace Darwin and Ida Farrer before their marriage (see CD’s Investment Book (Down House MS) and Correspondence vol. 27, letter to W. M. Hacon, 8 November [1879], and letter from W. M. Hacon, 31 December 1879). In 1880, he paid Horace £50 on 1 January and 1 July (CD’s Classed account books (Down House MS)). Catherine Langton had left money in trust to CD that was intended for distribution to his children (see Correspondence vol. 14, letter to W. E. Darwin, 8 November [1866]).
2
CD had decided to distribute the surplus income from his investments to his children in 1879 (see Correspondence vol. 27, letter to the Darwin children, 21 February 1879).
3
Horace may have built some of the compasses that CD used in his observations for Movement in plants.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 the same] above del ‘same’
1.3 does] above del ‘does’
1.5 not] interl
1.7 overplus] above del ‘overplus’
2.1 compasses] above del ‘compasses’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12392,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12392