[[1]]
1885 *1
Tuesday
Dearest H[yacinth] *2
I have just been to the Board -- there is no occasion to keep secret the matter of my
retirement any longer, I am glad to say -- for a fortnight I have been feeling as if I had
stolen goods in my pocket.
The Schedule of Application for retirement came yesterday, marked confidential, & I
have been filling it up out at the Board, dating my retirement from November 30th. I
shall be entitled to some £800 as I
[[2]] supposed; but they ought to make a special pension of it & add to it. -Willy [William Henslow Hooker] is alright again, but he looked so horribly ill that
Emma [Darwin?] & Dyer & Harriet *3 were all quite frightened about him. I have been
reading him a long lecture about his carelessness of himself. -- He looks well now,
but is as thin as ever.
Ever your loving | J D Hooker [signature]
[[3]] I have to be at the R[oyal] S[ociety] on Thursday & so shall not get down till
Friday at the usual hour.
Dr. Carpenter *4 is dead I hear, suddenly after an accident: I am very sorry.
Ever your J D [signature]
Please hand enclosed to Miss Kent.
ENDNOTES
1. Year added in pencil in another hand, possibly at a later date.
2. Lady Hyacinth Hooker, neé Symonds then Jardine (1843 -- 1921). Joseph
Hooker's second wife, they married in 1876.
3. Sir William Thiselton--Dyer, KCMG, FRS, FLS (1843 -- 1928), was a leading
British botanist, and the third director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He was
married to Harriet Anne Hooker, the daughter of Joseph Hooker.
4. Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS (1813 - 1885), was an English
physician, invertebrate zoologist & physiologist. He was instrumental in the early
stages of the unified University of London.
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