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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Lawson Tait   18 January [1880]1

7, Great Charles St. | Birmingham

Jan 18

My Dear Sir,

I have pleasure in informing you that the Council of our Philosophical Society has received the proposal to commemorate your birthday with enthusiasm, that we propose to elect you our first honorary member and to vote you an address which shall be proposed by our President, Dr. T. P. Heslop2 our leading Physician and seconded by, yours truly.

I am entrusted with the drafting of the address and if not bothering you too much I shall send you a rough copy of what I propose, after it has been submitted to my colleagues, in order that you may express any desire for alteration which may occur to you and that you may respond as you may think fit. It will of course be properly engraved before you receive it formally.

We desire to do this, not only for the honouring of a man whom we regard as the head of the scientific world, but to give a fillip to the removal of that singular terror which the word “Darwin” excites in the minds of religionists and other uneducated people—that is the bulk of the community

Yours faithfully | Lawson Tait

Footnotes

The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Lawson Tait, 13 January 1880.
Thomas Pretious Heslop was president of the Birmingham Philosophical Society for 1879–80 (Proceedings of the Birmingham Philosophical Society 2 (1879–81)).

Summary

The Birmingham Philosophical Society proposes to celebrate CD’s birthday and make him their first Honorary Member. RLT will draft the address.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12430
From
Robert Lawson (Lawson) Tait
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Birmingham
Source of text
DAR 99: 213–214
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12430,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12430.xml

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