Letter from Robert Stephenson to Dr Andrew Ure

24, Great George Street,
Westminster 24 Dec 1852

Dear Sir
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your note of Wednesday and beg to thank you for the information it contains respecting the sources from which you have derived your facts as to the origin and progress of tubular bridges_
It was very far from my intention to drag you into any controversy; my only wish was to lead you in a friendly way to the sources of information available on a subject in which I naturally take much interest and I did think as an author you

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you would gladly have availed yourself of the offer I made, even if the propriety of it, on a debated question had not occurred to yourself when you were in communication with Mr Fairbairn _
It would give me pain to believe that you are unwilling to investigate the whole facts and that you are content to rely upon a volume of statements merely because they have been printed and remain as you say “uncontradicted”
I am not so fond of strife & notoriety as to think it either necessary or becoming to seize every opportunity

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of reiterating claims which once fairly asserted must rest on their truth and justice _ The statement of them has been made as far as my part goes in the work of Edwin? Cla?c?rk, the gentleman, you have declined allowing to offer you any further explanations. Your note conveys to me the first intimation of my name having been put in competition with that of Mr. Fairbairn’s at the National Institute of France I never heard of it before and in my present ignorance, must take leave to doubt that the choice of that distinguished body was meant or could convey any opinion on the question in which you seem

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to think it proper to become a partizan

I am D’r Sir
Yours respectfully
Robt Stephenson


Dr. Andrew Ure
25 Keppel Street