To William Branwhite Clarke1    22 July 1876

22/7/76

 

Let me gratulate you, rev. and dear friend, to the happy choice, which the Council of the RS.2 has made, in including you among the 15 select for this year. The honor is all the greater, as you are, I think, the first, who since nearly a centurys foundation of N. S Wales will represent that great Colony in the Society, in which Sir Isaac Newton once presided.3

The honor ought to have been much earlier conferred on you, but in your overextreme modesty you never sought it til late in life. May you live still many years as an ornament of science among us.

Can you kindly tell me, whether the plate of the new veget fossil you discovered, did ever appear under Mr Wilkinsons care.4

Regardfully

Ferd. von Mueller

1
MS black edged — M's brother-in-law, Eduard Wehl, died on 11 February 1876.
2
Royal Society of London. Clarke had been included on that year’s list of candidates to be elected as members of the Society.
3
M's statement is not quite accurate. Philip Parker King, born on Norfolk Island in 1791, became an officer in the Royal Navy and an eminent hydrographer. He was elected FRS in 1824, and subsequently lived in NSW from 1830 until his death in 1856.
4
Rhytidocaryon wilkinsoni ; see M to W. Clarke, 10 April 1875, and B77.12.01, p. 12 and plate 1, figs. 1, 2 and 3.

Please cite as “FVM-76-07-22,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 4 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/76-07-22