This milestone in his career as a contributor to the newspaper's famous letters page was passed on January 5 with the publication of a letter about an extraordinary Victorian missionary, Dr Joseph Wolff. The full text of the letter, which appeared in slightly abbreviated form, is attached.
Dear Sir
Ben Macintyre ("Welcome to Afghanistan.Unless you are a spy", Jan.2) allots a mere six years ending in 1843 to the Asian exploits of the extraordinary Dr Joseph Wolff, a native of Bavaria who became an ordained minister in the American episcopalian church and married Sir Robert Walpole's great-great neice.
It was in 1821 that the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews first despatched him to Asia. He survived an earthquake which killed 40,000 people on his first night in Aleppo since " in consequence of the heat he had providentially gone to sleep in the open fields and thus escaped destruction". He arrived in Afghanistan in 1831 after escaping from a band of robbers in Persia "who stripped him and treated him with great cruelty".
In 1838 he retired to the safety of a curacy at Linthwaite in Yorkshire, but resigned in 1843 "in consequence of the inadequacy of the salary". It was in October 1844 that he set out on his last perilous journey to Afghanistan.
Yours faithfully
Lord Lexden
London SW1