He attended Shrewsbury School 1815–1822 as a boarder, and as a frail and studious boy his interest was in books and plants rather than sports. His mother died in 1817 and he was joined at the school by his brother Charles in September 1818. Eras became bored with the classical curriculum and took an interest in chemistry, with Charles as his assistant. They had a garden shed at their home fitted out as a laboratory. In 1822 Eras went on to a medical course at Christ's College, Cambridge. When it came to be time for his one year exte ...

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Erasmus Alvey Darwin, Erasmus Alvey Darwin - Education, Erasmus Alvey Darwin - Retirement, Erasmus Alvey Darwin - Miss Martineau, Erasmus Alvey Darwin - Uncle Ras

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Including:

Cambridge Apostles - Activities and membership Cambridge Apostles - Bloomsbury Cambridge Apostles - The Cambridge spy ring Cambridge Apostles - Former members

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Darwin — Wedgwood family - Josiah Wedgwood. Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was a noted potter and a friend of Erasmus Darwin; in 1780 on the death of Josiah Wedgwood's long-time business partner Thomas Bentley, Wedgwood turned to his friend Erasmus Darwin for help in running the business. As a result of the close association that grew up between the Wedgwood and Darwin families, one of Josiah's daughters later married Erasmus' son Robert. One of the children of that marriage, Charles Darwin, also married a ...

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Darwin — Wedgwood family, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The first generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Erasmus Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Samuel John Galton, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The second generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Robert Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Josiah Wedgwood II, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Thomas Wedgwood, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Samuel Tertius Galton, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The third generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Charles Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Francis Galton, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Other notables from the same period, Darwin — Wedgwood family - William Darwin Fox, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The fourth generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - George Howard Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Leonard Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Francis Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Horace Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The fifth generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Charles Galton Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Gwen Raverat, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Elizabeth Keynes nee Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Bernard Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Frances Cornford, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Nora Barlow nee Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Josiah Wedgwood 1st Baron Wedgwood, Darwin — Wedgwood family - The sixth generation, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Richard Keynes, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Quentin Keynes, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Robin Darwin, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Horace Barlow, Darwin — Wedgwood family - John Cornford, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Camilla Wedgwood, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Cicely Veronica CV Wedgwood, Darwin — Wedgwood family - Intermarriage

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Meanwhile, as Darwin worked from his sickbed his friends continued with debates. Asa Gray sent news of the American civil war, but to Darwin "the destruction of slavery would be well worth a dozen year's war". Wallace, stirred by the Origin and by Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, had presented his first paper to the racist pro-slavery Anthropological society. He, along with Darwin and the others, supported the abolitionist Ethnological society, but Wallace tried to reach a truce by proposing that races had long been sep ...

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Darwin from Orchids to Variation, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Background, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Ape-men, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Orchids, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Tendrils and loosestrife, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Changing times, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - The X Club, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Pangenesis, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - British Association, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Haeckel, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Variation under Domestication

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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 ...

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Emma Darwin, Emma Darwin - Biography, Emma Darwin - Children

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In 1832 she moved to London, where she numbered among her acquaintances Henry Hallam, Henry Hart Milman, Thomas Malthus, Monckton Milnes, Sydney Smith, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, and later Thomas Carlyle. Until 1834 she continued to be occupied with her political economy series and with a supplemental series of Illustrations of Taxation. Four stories supporting the Whig Poor Law reforms came out about the same time. These tales, direct, lucid, written without any appearance of effort, and yet practically effective, display the characterist ...

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Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau - Early life, Harriet Martineau - London and the United States, Harriet Martineau - Ambleside, Harriet Martineau - Mesmerism

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The book The Reign of Law by the Duke of Argyll argued that beauty with no obvious utility, such as exotic birds' plumage, proved divine design. Darwin had to show how this was explained by his theory of sexual selection, and was now working to include this with ape ancestry and evolution of morality and religion in a new book which he now decided to call The Descent of Man. Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sources. Darwin found many ideas in the quality magazines. Wallace argued that ...

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Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Background, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Family and research, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sexual selection, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Descent of Man, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sources, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - British Association, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Parish affairs, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Thomson and Mivart, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Holiday in Wales, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Editing and translation, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Mivart's Genesis, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - 6th Edition of the Origin, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - The Index, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - New edition of The Descent of Man

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The society is essentially a debating club. Meetings are held once a week, traditionally on Saturday evenings, during which one member gives a prepared talk on a topic, which is later thrown open for discussion; during the meetings, members used to eat sardines on toast, called "whales," though it's not known whether they still do. There are no constraints regarding which topic may be raised and how it is approached: members may raise any idea they can mount an arg ...

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Cambridge Apostles, Cambridge Apostles - Activities and membership, Cambridge Apostles - Bloomsbury, Cambridge Apostles - The Cambridge spy ring, Cambridge Apostles - Former members

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His most important scientific work is his Zoönomia (1794–1796), which contains a system of pathology, and a treatise on "generation," in which he, in the words of his famous grandson, Charles Robert Darwin, anticipated the views of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who in turn is regarded to have foreshadowed the theory of evolution. The essence of his views is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion that one and the same kind of living filaments is ...

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Erasmus Darwin, Erasmus Darwin - Zoönomia, Erasmus Darwin - Big Bang and Big Crunch Cosmological Theories, Erasmus Darwin - Family Tree, Erasmus Darwin - Inventions, Erasmus Darwin - Quotations

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Darwin's ideas developed rapidly from the return in 1836 of the Voyage of the Beagle. By December 1838 he had developed the principles of his theory, but was conscious of the need to answer all likely objections before publishing. While he continued with research, he had an immense amount of work in hand analysing and publishing findings from the Beagle expedition, and was repeatedly delayed by illness. Natural history at that time was dominated by clerical naturalists who saw their science as revealing God's plan, whose income came f ...

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Darwin from Orchids to Variation, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Background, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Ape-men, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Orchids, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Tendrils and loosestrife, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Changing times, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - The X Club, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Pangenesis, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - British Association, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Haeckel, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Variation under Domestication

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Through the spring Darwin pressed on with The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, pointing to shared evolution in contrast to Charles Bell's Anatomy and Physiology of Expression which claimed divinely created muscles to express man's exquisite feelings. Darwin drew on world wide responses to his questionnaires, hundreds of photographs of actors, babies and "imbeciles" in an asylum, as well as his own observations, with particular empathy for the grief following a family death. The proofs, tackled by Henrietta and Leo ...

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Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Background, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Family and research, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sexual selection, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Descent of Man, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sources, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - British Association, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Parish affairs, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Thomson and Mivart, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Holiday in Wales, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Editing and translation, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Mivart's Genesis, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - 6th Edition of the Origin, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - The Index, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - New edition of The Descent of Man

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Lyell was troubled both by Huxley's belligerence and by the question of ape ancestry, but got little sympathy from Darwin who teased him that "Our ancestor was an animal which breathed water, had a swim bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, and undoubtedly was a hermaphrodite! Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind... mankind will progress to such a pitch [that 19th century gentlemen will be looked back on] as mere barbarians". Huxley was busy attacking the old theory of divine providence as "anthropomorphism" and promoting t ...

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Darwin from Orchids to Variation, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Background, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Ape-men, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Orchids, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Tendrils and loosestrife, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Changing times, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - The X Club, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Pangenesis, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - British Association, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Haeckel, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Variation under Domestication

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Martineau was born in Norwich, where her father was a manufacturer. The family was of Huguenot extraction (see James Martineau) and professed Unitarian views. The atmosphere of her home was industrious, intellectual and austere; she herself was clever, but weakly and unhappy; she had no sense of taste or smell, and moreover early grew deaf, having to use an ear trumpet. At the age of fifteen the state of her health and nerves led to a prolonged visit to her father's sister, Mrs Kentish, who kept a school at Bristol. Here, in the companionshi ...

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Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau - Early life, Harriet Martineau - London and the United States, Harriet Martineau - Ambleside, Harriet Martineau - Mesmerism

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Miss Martineau edited a volume of Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, published in March 1851. Its form is that of a correspondence between herself and the garrulous self-styled scientist Henry G. Atkinson, and it expounds that doctrine of philosophical atheism to which Miss Martineau in Eastern Life had depicted the course of human belief as tending. The existence of a first cause is not denied, but is declared unknowable, and the authors, while regarded by others as denying it, certainly considered themselves ...

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Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau - Early life, Harriet Martineau - London and the United States, Harriet Martineau - Ambleside, Harriet Martineau - Mesmerism

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In 1844 Miss Martineau underwent a course of mesmerism, and in a few months was restored to health. She eventually published an account of her case, which had caused much discussion, in sixteen Letters on Mesmerism. This led to friction with 'the natural prejudices of a surgeon and a surgeon's wife' and in 1845 she left Tynemouth for Ambleside in the Lake District, where she built herself "The Knoll", the house in whic ...

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Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau - Early life, Harriet Martineau - London and the United States, Harriet Martineau - Ambleside, Harriet Martineau - Mesmerism

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Mivart wrote wishing "with all my heart that we did not differ so widely", but challenging Darwin to debate the basic metaphysics underlying science, from his Roman Catholic position writing that "while combatting (as duty compels me to do) positions you adopt, I am not so much combatting you as others to whose view your scientific labours give additional currency." Darwin took this personally, feeling that Mivart's Genesis of Species was "producing a great effect against Natural Selection, and more especially against me." After compl ...

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Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Background, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Family and research, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sexual selection, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Descent of Man, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sources, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - British Association, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Parish affairs, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Thomson and Mivart, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Holiday in Wales, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Editing and translation, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Mivart's Genesis, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - 6th Edition of the Origin, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - The Index, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - New edition of The Descent of Man

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For July and August 1861 they took their daughter Henrietta to the seaside village of Torquay. Darwin was diverted by spending hours watching insects visiting wild orchids. On returning home he looked for them near Downe, and his requests to the wealthy enthusiasts who had taken up growing rare orchids brought large numbers of specimens. These would be a test of his theory: Huxley had once asked "Who has ever dreamed of finding ...

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Darwin from Orchids to Variation, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Background, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Ape-men, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Orchids, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Tendrils and loosestrife, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Changing times, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - The X Club, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Pangenesis, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - British Association, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Haeckel, Darwin from Orchids to Variation - Variation under Domestication

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Despite Darwin's concerns that his children were weakened as his wife Emma Darwin was his cousin or had inherited his own illness, around early 1868 his sons had successes with William Darwin doing well as a bank manager, Leonard Darwin coming second in the entrance exam for the Royal Military Academy and George coming runner-up in his maths degree class at the University of Cambridge, getting offered a science mastership at Eton college but choosing to make his career in law. See also:

Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Background, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Family and research, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sexual selection, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Descent of Man, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Sources, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - British Association, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Parish affairs, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Thomson and Mivart, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Holiday in Wales, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Editing and translation, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Mivart's Genesis, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - 6th Edition of the Origin, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - The Index, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Publication, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - Emotions, Darwin from Descent of Man to Emotions - New edition of The Descent of Man

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He was in inventor of several devices, though did not patent any of them. He believed this would damage his reputation as a doctor, and encouraged his friends to patent their own modifications of his designs. One was a horizontal windmill, which he designed for Josiah Wedgwood (who would be Charles Darwin's other grandfather). A carriage that would not tip over was designed in 1766. In 1771 he invented a speaking machine. A canal lift for barges. A minute artificial bird. In 1778 he c ...

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Erasmus Darwin, Erasmus Darwin - Zoönomia, Erasmus Darwin - Big Bang and Big Crunch Cosmological Theories, Erasmus Darwin - Family Tree, Erasmus Darwin - Inventions, Erasmus Darwin - Quotations

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Erasmus Darwin along with his nephew-in-law Samuel Fox were members of the influential Derby Philosophical Society through which their experiments with air and gases designed to to alleviate infections and cancers in patients were promoted for clinical testing by the Pneumatic Institution established for this purpose at Clifton in 1799. His experiments in galvanism inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. His poetry was admired by Coleridge and Wordsworth; and often made reference to his interests in science, for example botany and steam engines. His most famous work of poetry was The Botanic Garden. He ...

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Erasmus Darwin, Erasmus Darwin - Zoönomia, Erasmus Darwin - Big Bang and Big Crunch Cosmological Theories, Erasmus Darwin - Family Tree, Erasmus Darwin - Inventions, Erasmus Darwin - Quotations

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