Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
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Edition area
Edition statement
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Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
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1803-1848 (Creation)
Physical description area
Physical description
6.5 cm of textual records
Publisher's series area
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
William Duncan Stark (1815-) and Robert Mackenzie Stark (1815-1873) were twin brothers, the sons of Scottish clergyman William Stark and his wife Elizabeth. The twins were born on 17 June 1815. Robert wrote A Popular History of British Mosses (London: Lovell Reeve, 1854).
Custodial history
Scope and content
The fonds consists of letters that the brothers wrote to Adam White of the British Museum from 1837 to 1848. White was an Assistant in the Zoology Department from 1835 to 1863. Most of the letters are written by Robert. There is also a journal kept by an unidentified man (presumably a Stark) who was living in Cape Town, South Africa from 1830 to 1834. The unbound journal consists of diary entries as the author travels by horse and sometimes by wagon in the area around Cape Town in 1830 and 1831. He often goes to Stellenbosch. The journal has some editing marks in it; at one point the author notes that his father has suggested that he write a book. The diary breaks off in 1831. The final few pages deal with the author’s return from Bombay, India to Cape Town on the “Earl of Eldon” in the summer of 1834.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
The fonds appears to have been donated by Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Davies; the date of acquisition is not known, possibly ca. 2000.
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There are no access restrictions.
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Further accruals are not expected.
