To J. L. Chester   2 March 1880

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

March 2d. 1880

Dear Sir

Your letter & pedigree arrived here on Sunday & the M.S. yesterday.1 I have read it with the greatest interest, & am completely astonished at your success & at the wonderful amount of labour which you have bestowed on the subject. I am sure we have all much cause to be grateful to you. It is surprising that you shd. have been able to find out so much.

I well remember my Father2 saying that no one knew or probably cd. ever know anything about W. Darwin of Cleatham.—3 There is a strange interest in reading the old Wills, & this has been increased manyfold by your remarks. My son Leonard has not seen the M.S. as he was forced to return to [Chatham] early on Monday morning.4 I will this day write & tell George in Cambridge.5 Both of them will feel the keenest interest in reading your lucid history of the family.

With my sincere thanks, I remain | Dear Sir | Yours very faithfully| Charles R. Darwin—

1
Chester’s letter has not been found; his history and the pedigree of the Darwin family in Lincolnshire, drawn from sixteenth and seventeenth-century wills, many of which are transcribed in full, are in DAR 210.14: 40.
3
In 1879, CD had considered employing Chester to research the first William Darwin of Cleatham, Lincolnshire, and his ancestors; see Correspondence vol. 27, letter from J. L. Chester, 11 July 1879.
4
Leonard Darwin was an instructor in chemistry and photography at the School of Military Engineering, Chatham (ODNB).
5
There are extensive notes by George Howard Darwin in DAR 210.14: 41, dated April 1880, clarifying various points in Chester’s history.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.5 in] interl above del ‘at’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12505F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12505F