skip to content
Home

Darwin Correspondence Project

To J. F. Lennard from the parishioners of Down, Kent1   3 April 1863

[Document signed, being a testimony by the parishioners of Down, Kent, witnessing to the moral character and integrity of George Snow,2 District Surveyor,3 addressed to the Chairman of the Highway Board4 and signed by nearly fifty local residents including ‘Charles Darwin Down House’.]

Footnotes

1
District Highway boards were local administrative units responsible for the public highways. This new administrative system had just been introduced under the Highway Act of 1862. Each district comprised a number of parishes; the parish of Down was part of the Bromley highway district (Return of highway districts).
2
George Snow was a coal dealer in Down who also ran a carrier service between Down and London (Post Office directory of the six home counties 1862).
3
In addition to his activities as coal dealer and carrier (see n. 2, above), Snow may have been the parish highway surveyor or district highway surveyor under the administrative system prevailing before the introduction of the District Highway boards in 1862 (see n. 1, above). See Highways (District Surveyors) Bill, and Webb and Webb 1913, pp. 29–31. Snow was unsuccessful in his candidature for district surveyor; George Golding of Chislehurst was appointed instead (Minutes of the Bromley Highway Board, 847/HB/B/1, Bromley Central Library).
4
At the first meeting of the Bromley District Highway Board, on 13 April 1863, John Farnaby Lennard was elected chairman (Minutes of the Bromley Highway Board, 847/HB/B/1, Bromley Central Library).

Bibliography

Highways (District Surveyors) Bill: Highways (District Surveyors) Bill. [British parliamentary papers, Session 1854, 3: 51–8.]

Post Office directory of the six home counties: Post Office directory of the six home counties, viz., Essex, Herts, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex. London: W. Kelly & Co. 1845–78.

Return of highway districts: Return showing the several highway districts in each county in England constituted under the Highway Acts 1862 and 1864 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 61 and 27 & 28 Vict. c. 101), and the names of the parishes comprised in each district. [British parliamentary papers, Session 1873, 20: 193–252.]

Webb, Sidney and Webb, Beatrice. 1913. English local government: the story of the king’s highway. Vol. 5 of English local government. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. 9 vols. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1906–29.

Summary

Testimony by the parishioners of Down, Kent, to the moral character and integrity of George Snow, District Surveyor. Signed by nearly fifty local residents, including CD.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4074F
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
John Farnaby Cator, 1st baronet/John Farnaby Lennard, 1st baronet
Source of text
Sotheby’s (dealers) (24 July 1995)
Physical description
DS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4074F,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4074F.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
darwin@lib.cam.ac.uk

© University of Cambridge 2022

Copyright declaration

Privacy policy

Website by Surface Impression

 

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge