WCP3766

Letter (WCP3766.3678)

[1]1

DOWN,

BECKENHAM, KENT.

_____________________

RAILWAY STATION

ORPINGTON. S.E.R.

Nov. 13 1880

My Dear Huxley,

At last I have collected sufficient facts about Wallace, chiefly from Miss Buckley.2 The enclosed paper3 is too long, but I could not well make it shorter. The more I hear about Wallace, the more I think that you will do a really kind action [2] if you can start with a few good signatures for a memorial. If there is any prospect of success, I would send the memorial with notes to all the men on whom we fix, and would do anything else which I possibly could. But what form the memorial ought to take, I have no idea; and I hope that you will aid in this. Nor do I know [3] how the memorial ought to be presented; if by a deputation of two or three, I would gladly come to London for the purpose. I have scribbled down the names of the persons whom to ask to sign, that is if you approve. I could approach Lord Aberdare4 [Ro]y.[margin obscured] Geograph. Soc. through Bates.5, 6 Miss Buckley suggested the Duke of Argyll;7 and I have reason to think [4] that he would wish to aid Wallace; but I suppose it would never do to ask a Minister to sign a memorial to the Premier.

I have seldom wished for anything so much, as to succeed in getting some provision for Wallace.

My dear Huxley, │ yours very sincerely │ Charles Darwin [signature]

I am so anxious about this affair, that [I] ask Mrs Huxley to send me a post-card with word "received".

P.S Very many thanks about Letter to Nature.8

P.S.2nd[?] Your note about "dried" forms[?]9 will give many a person a jolly laugh.

[5]
Spottiswoode10 Pres[ident] R.[oyal] Soc.[iety]
Huxley11 Sec[retary]. do [ditto]
Allman12 Pres. Linnean Soc.
Flower13 Pres. Zoological Soc.
Sclater14 Sec. do [ditto]
L[or]d. Aberdare15 Pres. Geograph. Soc.
Bates16 Sec. do [ditto]

Duke of Argyll???17

Lubbock18

Hooker19

Self

____________________

Perhaps (What do you think?)

Günther20 — Curator (?) British Museum (I could ask Gunther [sic] to sound Owen)21

Newton22 Professor of Zoology Cambridge

Rolleston23 — Oxford

[Th]is [MS torn] altogether makes 13 names with one or two [3? words illegible] doubtful[?] return[?] over

[6] Mr Smiles24got a pension for Edwards[?] [Edward],25 the Scotch naturalist, & when he came down here for my signature, he told me that he felt sure that it was the best plan to have very few signers.26He said this when I suggest some good men to him. —

1
Page 1 is numbered 346 by the repository. Every second subsequent page has a consecutive handwritten number written in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
2
Buckley (married name Fisher), Arabella Burton (1840-1929). British writer, science educator and spiritualist. See letter, CD to Buckley 17 Dec 1879, which "discusses possibility of Government pension for Wallace"; Darwin Correspondence Project. <https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-12361.xml> [accessed 24 Jan 2020]. (Summary only online at this date).
3
Presumably the draft of the petition to the Prime Minister William Gladstone urging him to award ARW a Civil Service pension. See WCP1988.4127, CD to ARW, 7 Jan 1881; and WCP1988.6243, a published version.
4
Bruce, Henry Austin. See note 15 below.
5
"[Ro]y. Geograph Socy" is interlined in ink in Darwin's hand. The main text, from the date to "sincerely" inclusive, is written in another hand, the signature and remaining text in Darwin's hand.
6
Bates, Henry W. See note 16 below.
7
Campbell, George J. D. See note 17 below.
8
Possibly CD, 5 Nov 1880, "Sir Wyville Thomson and Natural Selection", letter to the editor, Nature. A weekly Illustrated Journal of Science. Vol XXIII, November 1880 to April 1881. London & New York: Macmillan & Co. P. 32: 11 Nov 1880. See CD to T. H. Huxley 5 Nov 1880, sending a draft of a letter for Nature and asking THH's advice on a certain paragraph. Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 12796: <https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-12796.xml> [accessed 26 Jan. 2020]. (Summary only online at this date
9
Not found. The word might be read as "ferns" or "farms".
10
Spottiswoode, William (1825-1883). British mathematician and physicist.
11
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825-1895). British biologist known as "Darwin's Bulldog".
12
Allman, George James (1812-1898). Irish zoologist and botanist.
13
Flower, William Henry (1831-1899). British comparative anatomist and surgeon. Director of the British Museum (Natural History).
14
Sclater, Philip Lutley (1829-1913). British lawyer, zoologist and ornithologist, secretary to the Zoological Society of London.
15
Bruce, Henry Austin (1815-1895), first Baron Aberdare, British politician.
16
Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892). British naturalist, explorer and close friend of ARW.
17
. Campbell, George John Douglas (1823-1900). British politician and scientist. Eighth Duke of Argyll in the peerage of Scotland. Leader in the scholarly opposition against Darwinism. See WCP6133.7091, Niall Diarmid Campbell, grandson of the eighth Duke, to Violet Isobel Wallace.
18
Probably Lubbock, John (1834-1913). British banker and polymath.
19
Hooker, Joseph Dalton (1817-1911). British botanist and explorer.
20
Günther, Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf (formerly Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf) (1830-1914). German-born British zoologist. Keeper of the Zoology department, British Museum 1875-95.
21
Owen, Richard (1804-1892). British biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist.
22
Newton, Alfred (1829-1907). British zoologist and ornithologist.
23
Probably Rolleston, George (1829-1881). British physician and zoologist.
24
Smiles, Samuel (1812-1904). British medic, biographer and author of self-help books.
25
Edward, Thomas (1814-1886) British shoemaker and naturalist.
26
CD had signed Smiles's memorial concerning a Civil List pension for Thomas Edward. See CD to Samuel Smiles, 16 Dec. 1876; DCP: <https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-10720F.xml> [accessed 26 Jan. 2020].

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP3766.3678)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Parfitt, Elisabeth [2013-02-05] Transcription checked by Lucas, Paula [2020-03-19]

Please cite as “WCP3766,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3766