Sympathy for a scientist in difficulties

Sympathy for a scientist in difficulties
Charles Darwin. 19 June 1867
Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

Autograph letter signed (‘Ch. Darwin’) to [John William] Salter, 6 Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square W[est], 19 [June 1867].

Three pages, 200 x 124mm, bifolium.

Writing to the struggling naturalist J.W. Salter. ‘No one can be more sincerely glad than I am, on your account & on that of Science, to hear that your circumstances are amended & your anxieties lessened. As you are so kind as to offer so freely the Supp[lement to] Eng[lish] Bot[any] I shall be very pleased to accept it’, asking that it be sent to him care of G[eorge] Snow [the Down parcel-carrier] at the Nag’s Head in Borough. He regrets that he generally goes nowhere in the evenings unless feeling unusually strong, but ‘will attend at the Geology Soc[iety] tonight. It has been a very great loss to me that I have been compelled to give up attending all Scientific meetings’.

The naturalist and palaeontologist John William Salter (1820-1869) wrote to Darwin asking for financial aid during personal crises in 1866 and 1867; in May 1867, he was asking for help, noting that frequent and serious illnesses kept him from working, though his situation appears to have eased by 18 June, when he wrote offering to send parts of J.T. Boswell Syme’s English botany (1863–86) as a mark of appreciation for Darwin’s assistance. Two years later, Salter would commit suicide by throwing himself into the Thames.

Not published in the Darwin Correspondence Project.