5 OCTOBER 1951, Page 23

An Edgeworth Time-span

SIR,—Richard Edgeworth (eldest brother of Maria Edgeworth the novelist) was born in 1764, in the age of wigs and sedan chairs and Chatham. His half-sister Lucy Jane (Mrs. Romney Robinson) died in 1897 in the age of the earliest telephone, electric light, motor cars and Churchill. Is this a record span for one generation?—Yours, &c.,