To Josiah Wedgwood III   1 May [1854]

Down Farnborough Kent

May 1st

Dear Jos.

Will you be so kind as to sign the enclosed & return it to me, that I may get the Transfer completed.— Mr Muckleston pays off £1000 at end of this month (this £1000 is not part of the Marriage Trust) & as you as Trustee already hold some of these same Preference Shares, I have thought it would save trouble to the Trustees to transfer these shares (£1000 in value) to them, & let me receive the £1000 from Mr. Muckleston, which Erasmus proposes to instruct Mr. Salt to do,1 if we do not hear to the contrary from you.—

Yours affect | C. Darwin

Give my best love to Caroline. most heartily glad we were to hear so good an account of your interview with Sir. B. B.—2

1
See letter from E. A. Darwin, 26 April 1853, n. 3. The sum of £1000 had been lent in 1845 to Edward Muckleston of Quarry Place, Shrewsbury, from Emma Darwin’s ordinary trust fund (set up with the money she inherited from Josiah Wedgwood II and not directly related to her marriage trust). The capital was paid on 11 July 1854 (Investment account book, Down House MS).
2
Benjamin Collins Brodie, the prominent London surgeon who lived in Broome Park, Surrey, within a few miles of Caroline and Josiah Wedgwood III’s home, Leith Hill Place. It appears that Caroline Wedgwood’s mental health was suffering at this time (Wedgwood and Wedgwood 1980, p. 263), and this may possibly have been the subject of Josiah Wedgwood’s consultation with Brodie. Brodie’s book Psychological inquiries ([Brodie] 1854) was published in 1854; there is an annotated copy in the Darwin Library–CUL that CD recorded having read on 3 July 1854 (Correspondence vol. 4, Appendix IV, 128: 8).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

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Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1568,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1568