From: Biological Stn. Pearl Beach
Via Woy Woy
NSW

To: Miss M. C. Sadler
"White Lodge"
101 Northcourt Rd.
Abingdon, Berkshire
England

March 23, 1963

My dearest Margaret,

You have been much in my thoughts ever since your last letter arrived. I am worried about you in the cold and all your great distress and loss. I wish I could be of some help, but I have been on 'short commons' myself this year having given all I could to the Academy of Science in my hope to have something practical done in the conservation of our beautiful flora and fauna. This is in grave danger of extinction in so many places. This seems to be the work that I am called to do.

I have just come across a letter of yours dated 25/11/1960 asking me about Eleanor (Nell) Campbell, nee Purdon who died in 1961. I may have told you these particulars - her brother was the possessor of a whole page of distinctions which I wrote down somewhere but cannot find. Nell had a daughter, now living in Sydney, a very nice woman - Helen Friend. She has 3 sons and a daughter, Annette - a very nice little girl now in her teens and going 'home' soon to meet her relatives.

Strange to say that a little while ago a Miss Mary de Berniere-Bornwell of 20 Water St, Charleston, South Carolina, USA, wrote to me (as suggested by Mrs. Glyn (Huguenot Society) to Gina de la Cherois (now Mrs. Stone) of the Manor House, Donaghadee, N. Ireland, saying she was a direct descendent of Louis Crommelin. I had to write and explain that we did not leave any direct descendents by him, and she replied that we left several, so I had to explain again that the direct descendants are on the male line only. Therefore she is a direct descendent of the de Berniers, and not of the C.'s. I have not yet had a reply.

In her last letter she asked if I knew the Rev. Crommelin Neill, now chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, so I told her I did not. Then yesterday I came across your letter about Rev. Ian de la Cherois Neill, chaplain-general to the Middle East Forces whose mother was a Purdon, and she must have been one of Nell Campbell's sisters? No room for more... Love, Minard