Darwin–Wedgwood family

The Darwin–Wedgwood family is actually two interrelated English families, descended from the prominent 18th century doctor, Erasmus Darwin, and Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery firm, Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin. The family contained at least ten Fellows of the Royal Society and several artists and poets (including the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams). Presented below are brief biographical sketches and genealogical information with links to articles on the members. The individuals are listed by year of birth and grouped into generations. The relationship to Francis Galton and his immediate ancestors is also given. Note the tree below does not include all descendants or even all prominent descendants.

Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) was a noted potter and a friend of Erasmus Darwin. In 1780, on the death of his long-time business partner Thomas Bentley, Josiah turned to his friend 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's son Robert. One of the children of that marriage, Charles Darwin, also married a Wedgwood &mdash; Emma, Josiah's granddaughter. Robert's inheritance of Josiah's money enabled him to fund Charles Darwin's chosen vocation in natural history that led to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution. Subsequently Emma's inheritance made the Darwins a wealthy family.

Josiah Wedgwood married Sarah Wedgwood (1734–1815), and they had seven children, including: 
 * Josiah Wedgwood (1769–1843) (see below)
 * Susannah Wedgwood (1765–1817) (later Darwin; see below)
 * Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) (see below)

Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) was a physician, botanist and poet from Lichfield, whose lengthy botanical poems gave insights into medicine and natural history, and outlined an evolutionist theory that anticipated both Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and his grandson Charles. He married twice, first in 1757 to Mary Howard (1740–1770), who died from alcohol-induced liver failure aged 31. She gave birth to:


 * Charles Darwin (1758-1778) (not Charles Robert Darwin)
 * Erasmus Darwin the Younger (1759–1799)
 * Elizabeth Darwin, 1763 (survived 4 months)
 * Robert Waring Darwin (see below)
 * William Alvey Darwin, (1767) (survived 19 days)

He then had an extra-marital affair with a Miss Parker, producing two daughters:


 * Susanna Parker (1772–1856)
 * Mary Parker (1774–1859)

He then became smitten with Elizabeth Collier Sacheveral-Pole, who was married to Colonel Sacheveral-Pole and was the natural daughter of the Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore. Sacheveral-Pole died shortly afterwards, and Erasmus married Elizabeth and they bore an additional seven children:


 * Edward Darwin, (1782–1829)
 * Frances Anne Violetta Darwin, (1783–1874); married Samuel Tertius Galton; mother of Francis Galton (see below)
 * Emma Georgina Elizabeth Darwin (born 1784)
 * Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin (1786–1859)
 * John Darwin (1787–1865)
 * Henry Darwin (born 1789)
 * Harriot Darwin (1790–1825); later Harriott Maling.

Samuel "John" Galton
Samuel "John" Galton FRS (1753–1832) was an arms manufacturer from Birmingham. 

Robert Darwin
The son of Erasmus Darwin, Robert Darwin was a noted physician from Shrewsbury, whose own income as a physician, together with astute investment of his inherited wealth, enabled him to fund his son Charles Darwin's place on the Voyage of the Beagle and then gave him the private income needed to support Charles' chosen vocation in natural history that led to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution. He married Susannah Wedgwood, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood (see above), and they had the following children.


 * Marianne Darwin (1798-?), married Henry Parker (1788–1858) in 1824.
 * Caroline Sarah Darwin (1800–1888), married Josiah Wedgwood (grandson of the first Josiah Wedgwood)
 * Susan Elizabeth Darwin (1803–1866)
 * Erasmus Alvey Darwin (1804–1881)
 * Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) (see below)
 * Emily Catherine Darwin (1810–1866), was Charles Langton's second wife

Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (1769 – 1843) was the son of the first Josiah Wedgwood, and Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent. He married Elizabeth Allen (1764–1846) and they had seven children:


 * Josiah Wedgwood; (1795 – 1880) married Caroline Darwin, daughter of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. They are grandparents of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
 * Henry Allen Wedgwood (1799–1885)
 * Francis Wedgwood (1800–1880); married April 26, 1832 at Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire Frances Mosley daughter of Rev. John Peploe Mosley and Sarah Maria Paget and granddaughter of Sir John Parker Mosley and Elizabeth Bayley; and was the grandfather of Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood and great-grandfather of CV Wedgwood and Camilla Wedgwood
 * Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803–1891), etymologist, philologist and barrister, author of A Dictionary of English Etymology father of Frances Julia Wedgwood (1833–1913), and grandfather of Bishop J. I. Wedgwood.
 * Charlotte Wedgwood (1797–1862) was Charles Langton's first wife, after her death he married her cousin, Emily Catherine Darwin. She is the ancestors of Hugh Massingberd, see below.
 * Fanny Wedgwood; died unmarried in August 1832.
 * Emma Wedgwood (1808–1896); married Charles Darwin, son of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood.

Thomas Wedgwood
Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805). Pioneer in developing photography. Son of Josiah Wedgwood.

Samuel Tertius Galton


Samuel Tertius Galton married Frances Anne Violetta Darwin, (1783–1874) daughter of Erasmus Darwin, see above. They had three sons and four daughters including: 
 * Erasmus Galton (1815–1909), Lord of the Manor of Loxton
 * Francis Galton (1822–1911) (see below)

Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin


Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin was the son of Erasmus Darwin and Elizabeth (née Collier), daughter of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore. Francis was an accomplished travel writer, explorer and naturalist and bravely studied the ravages of the plague on Smyrna at great personal risk. He was the only one to return of his friends who set out for the East. A physician to George III, he was knighted by George IV.

On 16 December 1815 he married Jane Harriet Ryle (11 December 1794 - 19 April 1866) - at St. George, Hanover Square London. They had many children including:
 * Mary Jane Darwin (12 February 1817 -1872), married Charles Carill-Worsley of Platt Hall, near Manchester, in 1840. (Their daughter, Elizabeth, who married Nicolas Tindal, later Tindal-Carill-Worsley, was the mother of Charles and Ralph Tindal-Carill-Worsley - see under 5th Generation)
 * Frances Sarah Darwin (19 July 1822 – 1881), married Gustavus Barton in 1845, widowed 1846 and remarried to Marcus Huish in 1849.  She is the stepmother of the art dealer Marcus Bourne Huish
 * Edward Levett Darwin (12 April 1821 –23 April 1901), married Harriett Jessopp in 1850. A solicitor in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, Edward Levett Darwin was the author under the pen name "High Elms" of Gameskeeper's Manual, a guide for tending game on large estates which shows keen observation of the habits of various animals.

Charles Darwin


The most prominent member of the family, Charles Darwin, proposed the first coherent theory of evolution by means of natural and sexual selection.

Charles Robert Darwin was a son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. He married Emma Wedgwood, a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood II and Elizabeth Allen. Charles's mother, Susannah, was a sister to Emma's father, Josiah II. Thus, Charles and Emma were first cousins. Because of intermarriages in earlier generations, they were also related in other ways.

The Darwins had several children, three of whom died before reaching maturity.


 * William Erasmus Darwin (27 December 1839 - 1914); graduate of Christ's College Cambridge, he was a banker in Southampton. He married the New Yorker Sara Ashburner (-1902), but they had no children.


 * Anne Elizabeth Darwin (1841–1851) died in Great Malvern aged ten and her death caused her father much pain.


 * Mary Eleanor Darwin (23 September 1842 - 16 October 1842) died as a baby.


 * Henrietta Emma "Etty" Darwin (25 September 1843 - 1929); although she married Richard Litchfield in 1871, the couple never had any children. Etty Darwin edited her mother's private papers (published in 1904) and assisted her father with his work.[[Image:Francis Galton.jpg|thumb|right|[[Francis Galton]] (1822-1911)]]


 * George Howard Darwin (1845–1912) (see below)


 * Elizabeth (Bessy) Darwin (8 July 1847–1926); never married and had no descendants.


 * Francis Darwin (1848–1925) (see below)


 * Leonard Darwin (1850–1943) (see below)


 * Horace Darwin (1851–1928) (see below)


 * Charles Waring Darwin (6 December 1856 - 28 June 1858) was the tenth child and sixth son of Charles and Emma Darwin. His early death from scarlet fever  kept Charles Darwin from attending the first publication of Darwin's theory at the joint reading of papers by Alfred Russel Wallace and himself at the meeting of the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858.  Wallace was not present either - he was on an expedition.

Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton FRS (1822–1911) made important contributions to statistics and is known as the father of eugenics. He married Louisa Jane Butler, but they had no children. 

William Darwin Fox
The Rev. William Darwin Fox (1805–1880) was a second cousin of Charles Darwin and an amateur entomologist, naturalist and palaeontologist. Fox became a lifelong friend of Charles Darwin following their first meeting at Christ's College, Cambridge. He married Harriet Fletcher, who gave him five children, and following her death married Ellen Sophia Woodd, who provided the remainder of his 17 children.

Following his graduation from Cambridge in 1829, Fox was appointed as the Vicar of Osmaston and in 1838 became the Rector of Delamere, a living he retained until his retirement in 1873. 

George Howard Darwin
George Howard Darwin (1845–1912) was an astronomer and mathematician. He married Martha (Maud) du Puy of Philadelphia. They had four children:


 * Charles Galton Darwin (see below)
 * William Robert Darwin (married Sarah Monica Slingsby)
 * His son George Erasmus Darwin, (b. 1927) is a metallurgist and is father of Chris Darwin and Sarah Darwin, see below.
 * Gwendoline "Gwen" Darwin, artist; (see below)
 * Margaret Elizabeth (married Geoffrey Keynes, bibliophile) (see below)

Francis Darwin
Francis Darwin (1848–1925) was the botanist son of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin (née Wedgwood). Francis Darwin married Amy Ruck in 1874, who died in 1876 after the birth of their son Bernard Darwin, an author on golf - see below. Francis married Ellen Crofts in September 1883 and they had a daughter Frances Crofts, who married and became known as the poet Frances Cornford (see below). In 1913 he married his third wife Florence Henrietta Darwin (née Fisher); there were no children of this marriage.

He is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, where he is interred in the same grave as his daughter Frances Cornford. His third wife and his brother Sir Horace Darwin are interred in the same graveyard.

Leonard Darwin
Leonard Darwin (1850–1943) was variously an army officer, Member of Parliament and eugenicist who corresponded with Ronald Fisher, thus being the link between the two great evolutionary biologists.

Horace Darwin
Horace Darwin (1851–1928) and Ida Darwin (1854 - 1946) had the following children:


 * Nora Darwin, married Sir Alan Barlow (see below)
 * Ruth Darwin

He is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with his wife His brother Sir Francis Darwin is interred in the same graveyard.

Charles Galton Darwin
Charles Galton Darwin 1887-1962 was the son of George Howard Darwin (see above) and was a noted physicist of the age, and Director of the National Physics Laboratory. His son George Pember Darwin (1928–2001) married Angela Huxley, great granddaughter of Thomas Huxley.

Gwen Raverat
Gwen Raverat (née Darwin) (1885–1957) was the daughter of George Howard Darwin and was an artist. She married the French artist Jacques Raverat in 1911 and had daughters Elizabeth Hambro and Sophie Pryor. Her dryly amusing childhood memoir, Period Piece, contains illustrations of and anecdotes about many of the Darwin—Wedgwood clan.

Margaret Keynes (née Darwin)
Margaret Keynes was the daughter of George Howard Darwin, (see above). She married Geoffrey Keynes, brother of the well-known economist John Maynard Keynes (see Keynes family) and had sons Richard Keynes, Quentin Keynes, Milo Keynes and Stephen Keynes.

Bernard Darwin
Bernard Darwin (1876–1961) was a golf writer. He married Elinor Monsell (died 1954) in 1906, and they had a son Robert Vere Darwin (see below), and a daughter Ursula Mommens. 

Frances Cornford
Frances Cornford (née Darwin). Poet, daughter of Francis Darwin, see above, known to the family as 'FCC'; she was married to Francis Cornford, known to the family as 'FMC'. She is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, where she is in the same grave as her father Sir Francis Darwin. Her late husband, Francis, was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 6 January 1943, and his ashes are interred in the same grave.

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), British composer. His maternal grandmother, Caroline Sarah Darwin, was Charles Darwin's older sister, and his maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood III, was the older brother of Darwin's wife Emma.

Nora Barlow (née Darwin)
Nora Darwin (1885–1989), the daughter of Horace Darwin (see above), married Sir Alan Barlow. She also edited the Autobiography of Charles Darwin (ISBN 0393310698 (hardback) and ISBN 0-393-00487-2 (paperback)). They had the following children:


 * Sir Thomas Erasmus Barlow, (23 January 1914 - 12 October 2003), Royal Navy officer.
 * Erasmus Darwin Barlow (1915–2005)
 * Andrew Dalmahoy Barlow (1916–2006)
 * Professor Horace Basil Barlow (born 1921) (see below)
 * Hilda Horatia Barlow (b. 14 September 1919) married psychoanalyst John Hunter Padel; their daughter is the poet Ruth Padel (see below).

Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (1872–1943), great-great-grandson of Josiah Wedgwood I, was a Liberal and Labour MP, and served in the military during the Second Boer War and the First World War. He was raised to the peerage in 1942.

Charles Tindal-Carill-Worsley
Capt Charles Tindal-Carill-Worsley, RN, (d1920) a great grandson of Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin, was a successful naval officer in the First World War.

Ralph Tindal-Carill-Worsley
Cmdr Ralph Tindal-Carill-Worsley, RN, (1886–1966), brother of Charles, naval officer and bon viveur, served in the royal yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III under King Edward VII before World War I. He retired from the Royal Navy after the First World War but was recalled during World War II, when he was commandant of a training school for WRENS (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service). He married Kathleen, daughter of Simon Mangan of Dunboyne Castle, Lord Lieutenant of Meath and a first cousin of Brig Gen Paul Kenna, VC, and had three children.

Erasmus Darwin Barlow
Erasmus Darwin Barlow (1915–2005) was a psychiatrist, physiologist and businessman. Son of Nora Barlow.

Horace Barlow
Horace Barlow (b. 1921) was Professor of Physiology, Berkeley, California, USA; Royal Society Research Professor, Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge (1973–87).

John Cornford
John Cornford was a poet. Son of Frances Cornford, see above.

George Erasmus Darwin (Ras)
George Erasmus Darwin (b. 1927) is a metallurgist and is father of Robert Darwin, Chris Darwin and Sarah Darwin.

Henry Galton Darwin
Henry Galton Darwin (1929–1992) was a lawyer and diplomat. Son of Charles Galton Darwin.

Robin Darwin
Robert Vere "Robin" Darwin (1910–1974) was an artist. He is the son of Bernard Darwin, see above.

Quentin Keynes
Quentin Keynes (1921–2003) was a bibliophile and explorer. Son of Margaret Keynes, née Darwin, see above.

Richard Keynes
Professor Richard Darwin Keynes FRS (1919–2010) was a British physiologist. Son of Margaret Keynes, née Darwin, see above.

Nicolas Tindal-Carill-Worsley
Group Captain Nicolas Tindal-Carill-Worsley (1911–2006) was a RAF bomber pilot during the Second War (known as Nicolas Tindal). Son of Ralph Tindal-Carill-Worsley.

Camilla Wedgwood
Camilla Wedgwood (1901–1955), Anthropologist, was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood (see above).

Cicely Veronica (CV) Wedgwood
Cicely Veronica Wedgwood (1910–1997), historian. Daughter of Ralph Wedgwood

Martin Thomas Barlow
Martin T. Barlow (b. 1953) is a mathematician; son of Andrew Dalmahoy Barlow.

Phyllida Barlow
Phyllida Barlow (b. 1944) is a sculptor and art academic; daughter of Erasmus Darwin Barlow.

Matthew Chapman
Matthew Chapman (b. 1950), screenwriter, author, grandson of Frances Cornford see above.

Robert George Darwin
Robert George Darwin (b. 1959), Computer scientist, son of George Erasmus Darwin, brother of Chris Darwin and Sarah Darwin, see below.

Carola Darwin
Carola Darwin (b. 1967), singer, musicologist, granddaughter of Charles Galton Darwin, see above, and sister of Emma Darwin the novelist, see below.

Chris Darwin
Chris Darwin (b. 1961), conservationist and adventurer, son of George Erasmus Darwin, see above, and brother of Sarah Darwin and Robert Darwin, see below.

Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin (Novelist) (b. 1964), novelist, granddaughter of Charles Galton Darwin, see above.

Sarah Darwin
Sarah Darwin (b. 1964), botanist, daughter of George Erasmus Darwin, see above, and sister of Chris Darwin and Rober Darwin, see above.

Randal Keynes
Randal Keynes (b. 1948), conservationist and author, son of Richard Keynes, see above.

Simon Keynes
Simon Keynes (b. 1952), Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Cambridge University, son of Richard Keynes, see above, and brother of Randal Keynes, see above.

Hugh Massingberd
Hugh Massingberd (1947–2007) was an obituaries editor for the Daily Telegraph, a journalist and the author of many books on genealogy and architectural history. He was the great great grandson of Charlotte Langton (née Wedgwood), sister of Emma Darwin (Charles Darwin's wife) and granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood I.

Ruth Padel
Ruth Padel (b. 1946), Poet, granddaughter of Sir Alan and Lady (Nora) Barlow (née Darwin), see above.

R. Sebastian 'Bas' Pease
R. Sebastian 'Bas' Pease (1922–2004), physicist, Director of Culham Laboratory for Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion (1968–1981), head of the British chapter of Pugwash, grandson of the fourth Josiah Wedgwood (see above). His sister, Jocelyn Richenda 'Chenda' Gammell Pease (1925–2003), married Andrew Huxley.

William Pryor
William Pryor (b. 1945), memoirist, entrepreneur, screenwriter, grandson of Gwen Raverat (née Darwin), see above.

Lucy Rawlinson
Lucy Rawlinson (née Pryor) (b. 1948), painter (as Lucy Raverat), granddaughter of Gwen Raverat (née Darwin), see above.

Skandar Keynes
Skandar Keynes (b. 1991), actor, played "Edmund" in The Chronicles of Narnia (film series), son of Randal Keynes.

Intermarriage
There was a notable history of intermarriage within the family. In the period under discussion, Josiah Wedgwood married his third cousin Sarah Wedgwood; Charles Darwin married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood; his sister, Caroline Darwin, married Emma's brother (and Caroline's first cousin), Josiah Wedgwood III. There were other instances of cousin marriage both up and down the family tree. Cousin marriage was not uncommon in Britain during the 19th century though why is debated: poorer communications, keeping wealth within the family, more opportunity of evaluating a relative of the opposite sex as a suitable marriage partner (unmarried young women of the upper and upper middle classes were closely chaperoned when meeting men outside the family in the 19th century), more security for the woman as she would not be leaving her family (though legal rights for married women increased during the century, as a rule her property became his and she had little legal recourse if he chose to abuse her).

Coat of arms
These arms were granted to Reginald Darwin, of Fern, Derbyshire, for himself and certain descendants of his father, Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin, and his uncle Robert Waring Darwin (Father of Charles), on 6 March 1890. As Charles Darwin fell within the destination, they have been used in connection with him, despite being granted after his death. Something similar is used by Darwin College, Cambridge.