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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   9 April 1881

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Saturday evening | Ap. 9th 1881

My dear Dyer

It has been extraordinarily kind of you, overworked as you are, to write about Frank.—1 I assure you that neither he nor I ever expected that he wd. be elected on the first occasion, & after reading over the long list I saw at once that it was wholly out of the question.2 There is another name on the list with incomparably higher claims than those of Frank, namely Bates, & I earnestly hope that he has been elected.—3

Believe me my dear Dyer | Yours truly & gratefully | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

The letter from Thiselton-Dyer concerning Francis Darwin’s candidacy for fellowship of the Royal Society of London has not been found.
Francis Darwin had been proposed as a fellow of the Royal Society by Michael Foster in January 1881, but he was not elected until June 1882 (Royal Society archives, GB 117 EC/1882/09). Joseph Dalton Hooker and Thiselton-Dyer had signed the certificate of nomination.
Henry Walter Bates was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in June 1881 (Royal Society archives, GB 117 EC/1881/09). He had first been nominated by CD in 1879 (see Correspondence vol. 27, letter to H. W. Bates, 12 February 1879).

Summary

About Francis Darwin’s application for election to [Royal] Society.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-13109
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Darwin: Letters to Thiselton-Dyer, 1873–81: ff. 218–19)
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13109,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13109.xml

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