From J. D. Hooker 16 August 1875
Kew
Aug 16/75.
Dear Darwin
I must tell you the joyful news, that we have got rid of D. Galton, who is to resign on his pension (£1000 per ann)— He was entitled to £950, & they will make it the round sum, to look handsome I suppose!.
Lord Henry is furious & would not go to the White bait (Ministerial) dinner at Greenwich and he has begun to visit it on me! so I shall have to be very careful.1 Thank goodness I have all the office & the Treasury at my back & beck.
Mr Mitford behaves remarkably well under his good fortune in getting this odious obstruction & worse out of his way: he will now make every advance to Lord Henry, who you know has never spoke a word to him since his appointment over 10 month’s ago; & I only hope that, now that my Lord will find himself unsupported, he will retire from active interference in the Office.2 Meanwhile he is moving heaven & earth with the people about the Queen to prevent the Herbarium being kept in the Queens private grounds, for a small piece of which I have asked. (as a site for the new building) He insists on my finding a site for it in the public part of the Gardens! which I absolutely refuse to do, except the Queen refuses a corner of the Ground where the Herb. now is!3
It is a shame to worry you with these worries; but I know that you will be glad when that Galton is away.
Willy4 has just gone; I wish that he would come oftener. I am sorry that Leonard is disappointed about his station, but after getting on the Venus Expedtn. he could not expect a second stroke of luck, at his age!5 you & I might—of course.
Ever yr affec | J. D. Hooker.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Desmond, Ray. 1995. Kew: the history of the Royal Botanic Gardens. London: Harvill Press with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Port, M. H. 1995. Imperial London: civil government building in London, 1850–1915. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press.
Summary
JDH reports his battle with Lord Henry Lennox over whether to locate new Herbarium on the Queen’s or public part of Garden.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10120
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 104: 36–7
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10120,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10120.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23