Ɛpsilon

From H. N. Moseley   9 December 1881

14 St Giles | Oxford

Dec 9. 81

Dear Darwin

Many thanks for your letter which strangely fell in with my thoughts at the moment of receiving it.1 I was just contemplating the possibility of getting a foreigner elected here to the Botany post. I am an elector so you must treat anything I saw as confidential. I should like extremely to see such a man as you mention here but firstly would he come for £500?2 secondly would the University contemplate the arrival of a foreigner with content, thirdly could the President of Magdalen the Pres of the College of Physicians your Botany Professor at Cambridge & the Bishop of Winchester and Sir John Lubbock be induced to vote for such a man?3 The matter lies with them primarily.

I am very much annoyed because Dyer apparently intends to use Kew influence to run old Williamson who would put a final end to the subject if he came here.4

I will speak to some of the authorities here and write to you again. I do not expect the vacancy to be filled till March at least.5

Yours truly | H N Moseley

Please give my best compliments to Mrs Darwin.

1
CD’s letter has not been found.
2
The possible candidate mentioned by CD has not been identified.
3
From 1868 to 1882 the post of Sherardian Professor of botany at Oxford University was held by Marmaduke Alexander Lawson. The appointment of his successor was to be made by a board consisting of the visitor of Magdalen College, Oxford (the bishop of Winchester, Edward Harold Browne), and the president of Magdalen College (Frederick Bulley); the presidents of the Linnean Society and the Royal College of Physicians (John Lubbock and William Jenner); a person nominated by the Hebdomadal Council (William Turner Thiselton-Dyer); the Linacre Professor of comparative anatomy (Moseley); and the professor of botany at the University of Cambridge (Charles Cardale Babington) (Historical register of the University of Oxford, p. 60).
4
William Crawford Williamson was professor of natural history, anatomy, and physiology at Owens College, Manchester. His research focused on palaeobotany.
5
In the event, the post was filled in 1884 by Isaac Bayley Balfour.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13535,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13535