Ɛpsilon

From W. E. Darwin   19 November 1867

Southampton & Hampshire Bank. | Southampton

Nov 19 1867

My Dear Father,

My succession duty comes to £217. & I shall save £14.10 by paying at once.1 Times will be bad this Christmas in the banking way, or I should simply pay it off with the rent & have done with it. I have been thinking of the following plan.

As you are generous enough to pay 12 my Overend loss—namely £105—suppose you were to pay me that now, and also to invest £100 in me at 6 per Cent to be paid by this time year. I would sooner borrow the £100 at 6 per Cent, as I otherwise do not fairly save the £14.10 as discount from the succession office. & if you did not mind doing this; the simplest plan would be, to pay me £100 for Overend, & lend me £100 to paid by this time year.2

I shall have to pay you about £175 as dividend after Dec 1st.. I have heard nothing further as to Penarth.3 I am delighted to hear 1200 copies are sold, and hope you are up to your mark for London4

Your affect son | W. E. Darwin

1
The succession duty probably related to William’s inheritance from his aunt Susan Elizabeth Darwin, who had died in October 1866.
2
On 11 May 1866, the closure of a large lending firm, Overend, Gurney & Co., a joint-stock company with limited liability, led to a commercial panic in London and other financial centres, with a number of banks closing their doors and other firms temporarily suspending payments (Annual register (1866), pp. 44–5). In the event, CD gave William £200 (see Correspondence vol. 15, letter to W. E. Darwin, 20 November [1867] and n. 2).
3
CD did not record any dividend in 1867 on his investments in the Penarth Harbour and Dock Railway Company (CD’s Investment book (Down House MS), p. 97).
4
No letter to William about the advance sales of Variation has been found, but see Correspondence vol. 15, letter to J. V. Carus, 14 November [1867] and n. 6. CD visited London from 28 November to 7 December 1867 (Correspondence vol. 15, Appendix II).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5682F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5682F