Ɛpsilon

From G. H. Darwin   [29 August 1881]1

6 Queen Ann St

Monday

Dear Father,

I am sorry you do not agree about employing Salt but both W. & I thought it best & I still think so.2 Salt drew the will & was one of the witnesses only a year ago & has a number of papers & title deeds connected with the Estate so that it wd. have been impossible to have had nothing to do with him. The agents are a very large firm of solicitors in Lincolns Inn Fields & the head partner seems a gentleman & clear headed man.3

I have left the will there this morning.

We have talked the matter over with R. & have settled on the Bromley route with funeral at 12.30.4 All the letters are written & the arrangements made. If however you have a strong objection telegraph & I will do it again.

I have been about 3 hrs at Herries & looking over certificates5 & on the go since 8.30 & have more letters to write

I’ll do the best I can & hope things will go without much hitch. I shall drive down with the hearse on Thursday morning

Yrs affec. | G H Darwin

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from G. H. Darwin, 28 August 1881. The Monday following 28 August 1881 was 29 August.
2
George and William Erasmus Darwin were executors of Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s will. George Moultrie Salt was partner in the firm Salt & Sons, Shrewsbury. CD had expressed reservations about using Salt’s London agents (see letter to G. H. Darwin, [28 August 1881]).
3
The London agents were Paterson, Snow, & Bloxam of 25 Lincoln’s Inn Fields; the senior partner was William Benjamin Paterson (Law list 1881).
4
R. is probably Richard Buckley Litchfield. Erasmus Alvey Darwin was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Down.
5
Herries, Farquhar, Chapman & Co. were a London banking firm (Post Office London directory 1878).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13303,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13303