Description

Description: 

This one-page autograph letter signed states in full:

“Sept 25 1854

My dear Admiral Smyth

Thank you for bringing this matter before me & add my signature with real pleasure.

I am yours most sincerely friend Oxon [?]”

Written on 8” x 5” light-blue stationery with an embossed address: “Cuddesdon Palace, Wheatley, Oxon”. Item #A01848

Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805-1873) was a Bishop of Oxford and Winchester (1870-73) and a defender of orthodoxy and high church idealisms. Although an erudite speaker, he is most remembered for his critique of Darwin’s theory of evolution, a debate he “lost” to Thomas Huxley in 1860.

William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) was an English Royal Navy Officer, hydrographer, astronomer and numismatist. He is noted for his involvement in the early history of a number of learned societies and is the author of numerous books. His Bedford Catalogue, Vol II of the Cycle of Celestial Objects (1844), containing his 1,604 double stars and nebulae, became a standard reference work.

Condition: A ¼” tear at the upper left blank margin, mailing folds, generally very good condition.