 | Emma Darwin: Encyclopedia II - Emma Darwin - Biography
Emma Darwin - Biography
Emma Wedgwood was born in 1808 at the family estate of Maer Hall, Maer, Staffordshire, the youngest of six children of Josiah Wedgwood II and his wife Bessy (Elizabeth). She grew up in a wealthy manufacturing family as her grandfather Josiah Wedgwood had made his fortune in pottery, and like others who were not part of the aristocracy they were nonconformist, belonging to the Unitarian church. Charles Darwin was her first cousin; their shared grandparents were Josiah Wedgwood and his wife Sarah; and as the Wedgwood and Darwin families were closely allied, she had been acquainted with him since childhood.
She was very close to her sister Fanny, the two being known by the family as the "Doveleys", and was charming and messy, getting called "Little Miss Slip-Slop". She helped her older sister Elizabeth with the Sunday School which was held in Maer Hall laundry, writing simple moral tales to aid instruction and giving sixty village children their only formal training in reading, writing and religion.
For a time in her youth she was sent to Paris, where she studied piano with the celebrated composer Frédéric Chopin, and conducted a grand tour of Europe. In 1826 she went with her sister Fanny to stay with their Aunt Jessie (Madame de Sismondi) for eight months near Geneva. When her father went to collect them he was accompanied by Caroline Darwin and also took Charles Darwin as far as Paris, where they all met up again before returning home in July 1827. She was keen on outdoor sports and became a "Dragoness" at archery.
At Maer on 31 August 1831 she was with her family when they helped Charles Darwin to overturn his father's objections to the Voyage of the Beagle. During the voyage Charles's sisters kept him informed of news including the untimely death of Emma's sister Fanny and the gossip that his brother Erasmus Alvey Darwin was "paired off" with Emma to avert "an action in the Papers" over his "carrying on" with Hensleigh Wedgwood's wife. When Charles returned and was quick to visit Maer she joined in the interest in his travels.
Emma herself had turned down several offers of marriage, but after her mother suffered a seizure and became bedridden Emma had to nurse her mother and look after her older sister Elizabeth who was dwarfish and had severe spinal curvature.
She accepted Charles' marriage proposal on 11 November 1838, at the age of 30, and they were married on 29 January 1839 at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Maer, Staffordshire. Following a brief period of residence in London, they moved permanently to Down House, located in what was then the rural village of Down, close to the city.
Charles and Emma had ten children. They raised them in a distinctly non-authoritarian manner, and several of them later achieved considerable success in their chosen careers.
Emma Darwin is especially remembered for her patience and fortitude in dealing with her husband's long-term illness (see:Charles Darwin's illness,) which became apparent shortly after their marriage. In nursing and humoring Charles through his many ups and downs, she was a crucial factor in her husband's scientific accomplishments. She also endured the deaths of three of her children, Anne, Mary, and Charles Waring.
A source of difficulty in the Darwins' marriage was conflict between Charles' scientific findings (most particularly, the origin of humanity in the undirected process of evolution) and Emma's own devout Christian beliefs. The difficulty was increased when, following the painful and emotionally devastating death of their 10-year-old daughter Anne, Charles no longer accepted the orthodox Christian view of God. By his own admission he remained a theist until around 1859/60, when the Origin of Species appeared. After T.H. Huxley coined the word "agnostic" around 1868, Darwin used it to describe himself. Charles was evidently pained by the anxieties his beliefs produced in Emma, and tried to express them as gently as he could.
Emma often played the piano for Charles, and in Charles' 1871 The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin spent several pages on the evolution of musical ability by means of sexual selection.
Other related archives11 November, 1808, 1826, 1827, 1831, 1838, 1839, 1868, 1871, 1896, 2 May, 29 January, 31 August, 7 October, Anglican, Anne Elizabeth Darwin, British, Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin's illness, , Charles Waring Darwin, Christian, Down House, Elizabeth Darwin, Erasmus Alvey Darwin, Europe, Francis Darwin, Frédéric Chopin, Geneva, George Howard Darwin, Henrietta Emma "Etty" Darwin, Hensleigh Wedgwood, Horace Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, Josiah Wedgwood II, Leonard Darwin, London, Maer, Maer Hall, Mary Eleanor Darwin, Origin of Species, Paris, Social history of the piano, Staffordshire, T.H. Huxley, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Unitarian, Wedgwood and Darwin families, William Erasmus Darwin, agnostic, archery, evolution, grand tour, nonconformist, née, piano, pottery, sexual selection, the Voyage of the Beagle
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
