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From John Lubbock   8 February 1869

15, Lombard Street. E.C.

Feb 8/69

My dear Mr Darwin,

I am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken about the school accounts, which I have asked Mrs Lubbock to return today.1

I much regret to find the funds at such low water, but I really think we might get more subscribers who only wait to be asked. For instance all my brothers are parishioners as well2   Mrs Lubbock & myself & the clerk3 were the only communicants, & the present state of things must be very demoralizing to the parishioners

1
Lubbock refers to the accounts for the Down National School for boys and to Ellen Frances Lubbock. In a letter to J. B. Innes of 1 December 1868 (Correspondence vol. 16), CD wrote that he had handed over the school accounts to John Warburton Robinson, who had recently become curate of Down, but that Robinson had gone to Ireland for an extended stay and that parishioners were afraid in any case to pay subscriptions to Robinson. CD evidently had taken charge of the accounts in Robinson’s absence (see letter to J. W. Robinson, 1 February 1869 and n. 1). This incident was the latest in a series of problems with the curacy (see Correspondence vol. 16).
2
Lubbock had seven brothers (Burke’s peerage 1999).
3
The clerk has not been identified.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6607,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6607