My dear Darwin

My sister Emma is with us & I have enquired and learnt about D^r. Darwin’s second wife (my grandmother), various small facts, which are worth sending.¹ I had myself heard them before, but they had dropped out of memory; now I recollect them.

She was an illegitimate daughter of the then Duke of Portland & bore the family name of Collier, & was strikingly like his legitimate children.² She was brought up in thoroughly good society under the charge of a lady M^rs. Manwaring (?Mainwaring) who lived at Farnham, whom my mother knew, & once visited in company with her mother (my grandmother), & of whom my grandmother always spoke with great affection.³ The best surviving authority is M^rs. Harriet Bromley (your whole cousin).⁴ Her mother told the story to my mother;⁵ (there were many other corroborations of it).

We have at last an opportunity of getting a photo of her likeness for Emma has heard this very morning from Derby (from M^rs. Woollett Wilmot)⁶ that the original study for the Radbarn picture of her, exists among the numerous scraps & sketches made by Wright the painter, and now in possession of his great grand-daughter— It is a rough affair, partly in oil partly in water colour— We have permission to get it photographed & I write by this post to order 2 for myself, one of which you shall have, (besides I have made a bid for the sketch itself.)⁷

The photo of D^r. Darwin ordered long since at S. Kensington, has not even yet reached me—this is the picture that was in the Loan Collection, & which belongs to my sister M^rs. Wheler.⁸

I have not yet contrived to see T. L. Brunton.⁹

Ever y^rs. sincerely | Francis Galton