Charles Darwin 'worth GBP 13m at death'
11th August 2010
Acclaimed naturalist
Charles Darwin left more money in his will than celebrated
Victorian author
Charles Dickens, according to recently unveiled figures.
A new index of more than six million wills from the 19th and
20th centuries, published by Ancestry.co.uk, revealed that the
On the
Origin of Species writer left a personal estate of GBP
146,911, which would be worth around GBP 13 million today, on his
death in 1882.
Dickens, on the other hand, had 'effects under GBP 80,000' when
he passed away in 1870. In today's money, the Great
Expectations author's estate would have been valued at
around GBP 7.1 million.
The figures also reveal that
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle left GBP 63,491, the equivalent of GBP 3
million, after his death in 1931, while
Lewis Carroll's estate was worth GBP 4,145, or GBP 450,000,
when he died in 1898.
However, anti-capitalist philosopher
Karl Marx, perhaps appropriately, left just GBP 250 to his
daughter Eleanor in 1883. She would have received only GBP 23,000
today.