GEN MSS 1362
Box 1, Folder 2
Alfred White Van Sinderen collection of Charles Babbage
Series I. Correspondence of Charles Babbage

FRAGMENT OF A LETTER TO BABBAGE'S ELDEST SON, HERSCHEL, SIGNED --
"Ever Your Affectionate Father"

The fragment is not dated but could have been written any time. It is placed
here during the period in which his children were very young.

"Herschel" was Babbage's first-born son and was one of the three children out of eight who survived to adulthood. He was named Benjamin Herschel Babbage for Charles Babbage's father, Benjamin, and for Sir John Herschel, Babbage's close friend at Cambridge.

The names and approximate dates of Babbage's children follow:

Benjamin Herschel Babbage - 1815- (outlived his father - see above)
Georgiana Babbage - 1816-1834 (named for her mother)
Charles Whitmore Babbage ca 1818-1822 (Whitmore was Georgiana's maiden name)
Edward Stewart Babbage - 1818-1821 (named for Edward Bromhead & Dugald Stewart)
Dugald Babbage ca 1822- (outlived his father - named again for Dugald Stewart)
Henry Provost Babbage - 1824- (outlived his father - origin of name not known)

Another son (name unknown)- born 1826; died 1827

Alexander Babbage - August 1827-November 1827

(Babbage's wife died after childbirth in August. Charles lost his father, his wife and two children in 1827).

Babbage, Benjamin Herschel / undated