To J. D. Hooker   16 August [1865]

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Aug 16th

My dear Hooker

I have this minute seen in the Times your Father’s death. I did not even know that he was ill.1 I hope earnestly that he did not suffer much at the close of his long life. He must have passed on the whole a happy & certainly a most active life. As I had not heard for some time from you, I have been continually thinking of you & had a presentiment of some ill news; but did not fear your Father.—

Do not write soon, but you know how anxious I shall be to hear of you, before very long.— I am bad, so no more.

My best of old Friends | Yours affectionately | Ch. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘/65.’

1
William Jackson Hooker, Hooker’s father, died on 12 August 1865. The notice of his death appeared in The Times, 15 August 1865, p. 1. Hooker had last mentioned his father’s health in a letter to CD of [26 May 1865], when he wrote of his father: ‘he is much shaken, though quite as well as, at his age, can be expected’. According to the account in L. Huxley ed. 1918, 2: 68, W. J. Hooker had been active until his final illness, escorting a party of visitors through the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, only the day before he fell ill.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4884,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4884