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From W. E. Darwin   [14 July 1865]1

Southampton

Friday

My Dear Father;

The bridge over the Itchen belongs to a small company and they keep their account here, Mr Atherley being their treasurer.2

It pays very well about 7 per Cents on the average. They want to make me a member of the committee as they cannot make Mr Atherley as being treasurer. The members of committee get their guinea or so for meeting.3

But they require one to hold a share.

I wanted to know whether you would mind lending me a hundred pounds; as I don’t like reducing my own account too much for the look of the thing;4

Of course I could sell out something, & if one was not one’s own banker of course one could borrow the money, or keep one’s account low. If you could let me have it, I should repay some at Christmas. I dont suppose I shall want it for some time.

I hope you still keep improving & have no sickness   it is a horrid bore I cannot have the boys; but they might come when I come back, which will be about the 25th.5

I shall have a hard day tomorrow, I leave here at 5 in afternoon and am in Dublin at 7.30 in the morning.

I shall stay Monday & have a look at Exhibition, & go on to Armagh on the Tuesday for the Wedding   My direction will be up to the 21st G. Skipworth’s Armagh Ireland.6

I am reading Tylor’s Antient history & like it very much.7

I take my ice with me in a box, as it would be impossible to get any at 3 in the morning at Holyhead.8

You ought to get the new London Library Catalogue.9

My love to mama | Your affect son | W. E. Darwin.

Footnotes

1
The date is established by a reference to William’s attending a wedding in Armagh on 20 July (see n. 6, below). The Friday before 20 July 1865 was 14 July.
2
The Northam bridge was the only fixed bridge over the river Itchen, and connected Southampton and Bitterne; it was owned by the Northam Bridge Company (B. C. Jones 1960). George Atherley was William’s partner in the Southampton and Hampshire Bank.
3
William’s reference to getting a guinea is probably an allusion to the traditional payment received by individuals upon joining a militia (Militia Act of 1757).
4
CD recorded a payment of £100 to William on 4 October 1865 under the heading ‘W. E. Darwin shr bridge’ in his Account books–banking account (Down House MS).
5
Emma Darwin recorded in her diary (DAR 242) that CD suffered several bouts of vomiting and flatulence throughout May and June 1865, but was somewhat better in July; he had been following John Chapman’s ice treatment since 20 May (see Correspondence vol. 13).
6
The Dublin International Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures was held from 9 May until 9 November 1865 (Dublin exhibition catalogue; The Times, 11 November 1865, p. 10). William’s friend Septimus Patrick Skipworth was married at the cathedral in Armagh on 20 July 1865; his brother, Patricius Grey Skipworth, officiated at the wedding (Belfast News-Letter, 24 July 1865, p. 2).
7
Edward Burnett Tylor’s Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization (Tylor 1865) was published in February 1865 (Publishers’ Circular, 15 February 1865, p. 89).
8
Holyhead, a town in Anglesey, Wales, is the port from which William would have left on his journey to Ireland. William was evidently trying Chapman’s ice treatment (see n. 5, above).
9
The London Library, founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle, was a private lending library; CD was a member. In 1865, a third edition of the catalogue was published, listing 80,000 volumes (www.londonlibrary.co.uk, accessed 19 March 2015).

Bibliography

Jones, Bruce Copley. 1960. Crossing the Itchen: the Itchen floating bridge and roads 1834–1934. Southampton: City of Southampton.

Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1865. Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization. London: John Murray.

Summary

Wants to borrow money to buy stock in the bridge over the Itchen.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-4873F
From
William Erasmus Darwin
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Southampton
Source of text
Cornford Family Papers (DAR 275: 21)
Physical description
ALS 6pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4873F,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4873F.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24 (Supplement)

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