Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

Autograph letter signed (‘Charles Darwin’) to Henry Nottidge Moseley, Down, Beckenham, Kent, 25 September 1881.

One page, 203 x 125mm, bifolium, headed notepaper. Provenance: by descent.

‘I earnestly hope that you may be elected Linacre Professor at Oxford, for from my knowledge of your several works & from personal acquaintance with you, I am convinced that no other zoologist in Great Britain, who is so competent to be a candidate, is so well fitted for the place & so likely to advance natural science in Oxford’.

Moseley wrote to Darwin on 24 September asking for a testimonial to support his candidacy for the Linacre chair of Human and Comparative Anatomy at Merton College (now Linacre Professor of Zoology), a request which Darwin fulfilled, writing with fulsome praise. Moseley’s application was to prove successful, his tenure at Oxford even more so: ‘He put enormous effort into his research and teaching. In addition his administrative duties were daunting. Within Oxford he worked tirelessly at the Sisyphian task of reviving the natural science schools, and he secured the Pitt-Rivers anthropological collection for the university, which he then took on the task of housing and organizing' (ODNB).

Darwin Correspondence Project 13355

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