Account book
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Category
Books
Date
1791 - 1980
Materials
Paper
Measurements
20 x 17 x 0.5 cm
Collection
Leith Hill, Surrey
NT 767995
Summary
Weighing account book with marbled covers containing handwritten notes of heights and weights of Wedgwood family members and visitors to Leith Hill Place from 1791 to 1980.
Full description
‘Weighing Account’ [titled thus on upper wrapper], 1791-1980, Quarto (200 x 165mm), manuscript on paper, 26 ll., most pages with ruled columns, with dated entries in pen and pencil by various hands recording weights and heights measured between 13 February 1791 and 10 April 1980 (some written in pencil and then overwritten in ink), and an unrelated note on the final page dated March 1853. A loosely-inserted slip lists the weights of Charles Darwin recorded in the book between 1836 and 1847. Original marbled paper wrappers, applied manuscript title-label on upper wrapper. The pages of the ‘Weighing Account’ are divided into columns for the date, the name of the subject, the subject’s weight, and their height. The first three of these columns are filled consistently through the notebook (with occasional annotations such as ‘in his boots’ or the age of the subject), but the heights are only given occasionally. Interestingly, the entries on the first seven pages, which run from 13 February 1791 and 20 June 1797, appear to be written entirely in Robert Darwin’s hand and give the weights of numerous people from the vicinity who were presumably his patients (among these, weighed on 4 May 1791 is ‘Mr Bage’, possibly the Shrewsbury surveyor and engineer Charles Woolley Bage, 1751-1822, the son of the novelist Robert Bage, who was a friend of Erasmus Darwin). Excluding Robert Darwin’s own weight (which was measured and recorded on 18 July 1794 and 17 May 1797), the only weights for an identifiable member of his family at this time are those of his wife Susannah Darwin (‘Mrs R.D.’), which were taken on an unspecified day in 1797, in March and May 1797, on 30 July and 2 December 1797, and on 13 January, 17 March, and 20 June 1798 – dates span the time of Susannah Darwin’s pregnancy with her first child, Marianne, who was born on 7 April 1798. In June 1800, the weighing machine seems to have been transferred to domestic use (perhaps replaced in the medical practice by a more accurate or convenient apparatus?), and from that point onwards the ‘Weighing Account’ is populated predominantly by Darwins, Wedgwoods, Parkers, Williams, and other members of Robert and Susannah Darwin’s extended family. The majority of the entries are in ink (but occasionally in pencil) and, apart from the entries written in Robert Darwin’s hand, the subjects sometimes write their own name and details in the book or the details will be supplied for a family by one member. Occasionally, weights taken elsewhere are entered into book – for example, an entry for Robert’s son Charles Darwin dated 23 October 1840 is annotated ‘(at Maer)’, indicating that it was taken at Maer Hall in Staffordshire (the home of Charles’ uncle and father-in-law Josiah II Wedgwood, which was fewer than thirty miles from Robert Darwin’s home in Shrewsbury). The first reference to Charles Darwin’s weight is on 29 December 1811, when he was weighed with his siblings, and c. 40 entries for him follow, ending on 24 October 1847. While the earlier entries for Charles Darwin are in the hands of others, many of the later ones for his adult years are in his own hand (as are some of those for members of his family). Charles Darwin’s weight was occasionally referred to in family correspondence – for example, after his return from the Beagle voyage, his sister Caroline Darwin wrote to her niece Sarah Wedgwood on 5 October 1836 that Charles ‘is looking very thin’ (Darwin Correspondence Project (DCP), ‘Letter no. 308’), and the ‘Weighing Account’ shows that on 7 October 1836 (a week after he landed in England), Charles Darwin weighed ‘10 stone, 8¼ lbs’ but that two months later he weighed ’11 stone 12 lbs’. On 5 April 1840 Charles Darwin wrote from Shrewsbury to his wife Emma Darwin that ‘I find I am a good deal thinner than I was, weighing less than Erasmus now’ (DCP, ‘Letter no. 564’), presumably referring to the entry for 4 April 1840, which gives his weight as 10st. 8lb. Interestingly, Charles and Emma Darwin seem to have also kept a separate, personal record of weights, since in a letter of October 1843 he wrote to Emma Darwin from Shrewsbury to tell her that ‘I weighed yesterday before luncheon 11st. 2½ lbs: please enter it in your book’ (DCP, ‘Letter no. 704’, noting that the only record in the ‘Weighing Account’ for this period is slightly different). Also of interest are the entries for William Erasmus Darwin, Charles and Emma Darwin’s first child, who was born on 27 December 1839 in London, but baptised at St Peter’s Church, Maer on 23 June 1840. William’s weight was first recorded in the ‘Weighing Account’ a week later on 30 June 1840 and again on 8 July 1840 (on both occasions his parents’ weights were also recorded), and further entries for him occur throughout the manuscript. During the first three years of William Darwin’s life, his father kept a detailed record of his development, distinguishing as best he could between instinctive and learned behaviours, in a diary: ‘I had excellent opportunities for close observation, and wrote down at once whatever was observed’ (‘A Biographical Sketch of an Infant’ in Mind. A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy (vol. 2 (1877), pp. 285-294, at p. 285). Some of these observations were utilised in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (London, 1872) and the notes were then published at greater length in the pioneering paper ‘A Biographical Sketch of an Infant’ – ‘the first fully scientific study of psychological development from birth to early childhood’ (ODNB). The final entry for Robert Darwin is dated 30 May 1846 and marked as his 80th birthday, when he weighed 22st 3½lb. He died two years later in 1848, and the weighing machine most probably left The Mount shortly afterwards and passed to his daughter Caroline Darwin, who had married Josiah III Wedgwood in 1837. In 1842 Josiah III Wedgwood resigned his partnership in the family business and in 1847 he bought Leith Hill Place, Surrey, where the weighing machine and notebook remained in the possession of his descendants, until Leith Hill Place and its contents were gifted to the National Trust in 1944. Following this change in ownership, the weighing machine and account book remained in the house, where they were used by the families of Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 1st Bt (1874-1956) and his son Sir John Wedgwood, 2nd Bt (1907-1989; both families lived in Leith Hill Place as tenants of the National Trust), and the final entries in the ‘Weighing Account’ are for the family of Sir Martin Wedgwood, 3rd Bt and others, and are dated 10 April 1980. At this time, members of the extended Darwin family were gathering items relating to Charles Darwin, to return to Down House, and it seems likely that the weighing machine and the accompanying ‘Weighing Account’ book were transferred to Down House at around that time. Certainly, both the weighing machine and the accompanying notebook were on display at Down House by 1981, where they were noticed by Philip Titheradge (cf. The Charles Darwin Memorial at Down House, Downe, Kent (Downe, 1981), pp. 16 and 19)
Provenance
Account book begun by Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848) then passed by descent to his daughter and son-in-law,Caroline Sarah and Josiah III Wedgwood, Leith Hill Place (1800-1888 and 1795-1880) and by descent to their grandson, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), who gifted it to the National Trust in 1944 as part of the contents of Leith Hill Place together with associated weighing machine NT 767964 (both listed in 1978 inventory).
Makers and roles
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882), maker