PREFACE 



A NUMBER of family letters (originally in the possession of 

 my aunt, Miss Elizabeth Wedgwood) were found amongst 

 my mother's papers, and were placed in my hands by 

 her executors, my brothers William and George Darwin. 

 Broadly speaking, these letters cover the period during which 

 my grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, lived at Maer Hall in 

 Staffordshire, and I shall speak of them as the " Maer 

 letters." 



After my mother's death I thought that some record of 

 her life and character would be of value to her grandchildren, 

 and with this view began to put down all that I could 

 remember. Whilst reading these old letters in order to get 

 light on her youth and early middle life, I became much 

 interested in the personalities of the writers, and it seemed 

 best to include such of them as are of interest in them- 

 selves, as well as those that bear on my mother. The letters 

 written by the Aliens (Mrs Josiah Wedgwood and her 

 sisters) fill most of the first volume, and there are but few 

 of my mother's until the second. 



The whole mass of letters, on which the early part of 

 this family record is founded, were given to me in a state 

 of absolute confusion. It was the habit of the family to 

 send letters to and from London in boxes of goods des- 

 patched from the pottery works at Etruria, hence there is 

 often no postmark; and the writers frequently give only the 

 day of the week or month. During the enforced leisure of 







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