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Darwin Correspondence Project

From P. L. Sclater   2 June 1877

44, Elvaston Place. | Queens Gate. S.W.

June 2nd. 1877

My dear Mr Darwin

I believe Flower has spoken to you about the attack that has been made upon Wyville-Thomson which is explained in the enclosed memorandum and that you have expressed your willingness to join us in repudiating any share in it. The enclosed was drawn up by Flower Huxley and myself and is agreed to by Hooker. I hope you will be able to sign it. Please return it to me in the enclosed envelope.1

I was glad to hear from Sir Victor Brooke such a good report of you.2 When you come to London do not forget to come and see | Your’s most sincerely | P. L Sclater

Footnotes

The enclosure was a memorial supporting Charles Wyville Thomson. He had been criticised by Peter Martin Duncan for assigning some of the specimens from the Challenger expedition to foreign zoologists. The memorial was published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4th ser. 20 (1877): 79–80; the debate over Thomson’s decision had arisen in ibid. 4th ser. 19 (1877): 429–30, 506–9. The memorial defending Thomson’s choice of ‘competent naturalists without regard to their nationality’ was signed by CD, Sclater, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, William Henry Flower and seven others; it was reprinted in Nature, 14 June 1877, pp. 117–19.
Victor Brooke had visited CD at Down on 26 May (see letter to W. H. Flower, 19 May [1877]).

Summary

Encloses a memorandum [missing] drawn up by W. H. Flower, Huxley, and himself, defending Charles Wyville Thomson against an attack made upon him.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10981
From
Philip Lutley Sclater
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
London, Elvaston Place, 44
Source of text
DAR 177: 76
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10981,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10981.xml

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