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
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