Erasmus Darwin (12 December 1731 – 18 April 1802), was an English physician, natural philosopher, physiologist, inventor and poet. He was one of the founder members of the
Lunar Society, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers. He was a member of the Darwin —
Wedgwood family, which most famously includes his grandson, Charles Darwin.
Biography
Early life
Darwin was born at Elston Hall, Nottinghamshire near
Newark-on-Trent, England, the youngest of seven
children of Robert Darwin of Elston (12 August,
1682 - 20 November, 1754), a
lawyer, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702-1797). His siblings were:
- Robert Waring Darwin (17
October,1724-4 November, 1816)
- Elizabeth Darwin (15 September, 1725- 8 April, 1800
- William Alvey Darwin (3 October, 1726-7 October, 1783)
- Anne Darwin (12 November, 1727 - 3 August, 1813
- Susannah Darwin (10 April, 1729 - 29 September, 1789
- John Darwin, rector of Elston (28 September, 1730 -
24 May, 1805
He was educated at Chesterfield School, then later at St John's College, Cambridge. He obtained
his medical education at Edinburgh Medical School. Whether Darwin ever obtained
the formal degree of MD is not known.
Darwin settled in 1756 as a physician at Nottingham, but met with little success and so moved the following year to
Lichfield to try to establish a practise there. A few weeks after his arrival, using a novel
course of treatment, he restored the health of a young man whose death seemed inevitable. This ensured his success in the new
locale. Darwin was a highly successful physician for more than fifty years in the Midland counties. George III invited him to be Royal
Physician, but Darwin declined.
Marriages and children
Darwin married twice and had 14 children, including 2 illegitimate daughters by a mistress, and, possibly, at least one
further illegitimate daughter.
In 1757, he married Mary (Polly) Howard (1740-1770). They had four sons and one daughter, two of whom (a son and a daughter)
died in infancy:
- Charles Darwin (1758-1778)
- Erasmus Darwin II (1759-1799)
- Elizabeth Darwin (1763), survived 4 months.
- Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848), father of the naturalist Charles Darwin
- William Alvey Darwin (1767), survived 19 days.
The first Mrs Darwin died in 1770. A governess, Mary Parker, was hired to look after
Robert. By late 1771, Darwin and Parker had become intimately involved and
together they had two illegitimate daughters:
- Susanna Parker (1772-1856)
- Mary Parker Jr (1774–1859)
Susanna and Mary Jr later established a school boarding school for girls. In 1782, Mary Sr married Joseph Day (1745–1811), a
Birmingham merchant, and moved away.
Meanwhile, Lucy, daughter of Lucy Swift (was born in 1771, and was christened a daughter of William and Lucy Swift; but she
may have been Erasmus Darwin's daughter [1]. Lucy Jr. married John Hardcastle in Derby in 1792 and their daughter, Mary, married Francis Boott,
the physician.
In 1775, Darwin met Elizabeth Pole, daughter of Charles Colyear, 2nd
Earl of Portmore, and wife of Colonel Edward Pole (1718-1780); but as she was married,
Darwin could only make his feelings known for her through poetry. Edward Pole died in 1780. So, in 1781, Darwin married Elizabeth
Pole and moved to her home, Radburn Hall, four miles west of Derby. (The hall and village are these days known as Radbourne.) In 1782, they moved to Full Street, Derby.
They had four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and three daughters:
- Edward Darwin (1782-1829)
- Frances Ann Violetta Darwin (1783-1874), married Samuel Tertius Galton, was
the mother of Francis Galton
- Emma Georgina Elizabeth Darwin (1784-1818)
- Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin (1786-1859)
- John Darwin (1787-1818)
- Henry Darwin (1789-1790), died in infancy.
- Harriet Darwin (1790-1825), married Admiral Thomas James Malling
Death
Darwin died suddenly on the 18 April 1802, weeks after having moved to Breadsall
Priory, just north of Derby. He is buried in All Saints Church, Breadsall.
Erasmus Darwin is commemorated on one of the Moonstones; a series of
monuments in Birmingham.
Scientific writings
Botanical works
Darwin formed the Lichfield Botanical Society in order to translate the works of the Swedish
botanist Carolus Linnaeus from Latin into English. This took seven years. The result
was two publications--A System of Vegetables between 1783 and 1785 and The Families of Plants in 1787. In these
volumes, Darwin coined many of the English names of plants that we use today.
Darwin then wrote The Loves of the Plants, a long poem, which was a popular
rendering of Linnaeus' works. Darwin also wrote Economy of Vegetation, and
together the two were published as The Botanic Garden.
Zoönomia
Darwin's most important scientific work is 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. Darwin based his theories on David Hartley's psychological theory of "associationism".[1] 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
filament is and has been the cause of all organic life:
Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages
before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from
one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new
propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to
improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without
end!
Erasmus Darwin was familiar with the earlier evolutionary thinking of James
Burnett, Lord Monboddo, and cited him in his 1803 work Temple of Nature.
Another of his grandsons was Francis Galton (see family tree below).
Poem on evolution
Darwin's final long poem, The Temple of Nature, was published posthumously in 1803. The poem was originally titled
The Origin of Society. It is considered his best poetic work. It centers on Darwin's newly-conceived theory of evolution. The poem traces the progression of life from microorganisms to civilized society. Darwin
largely anticipated most of what his grandson Charles Darwin would later propose, except for the idea of natural selection.
His poetry was admired by Coleridge and Wordsworth. It often made reference to his interests in science; for example botany and
steam engines. His most famous work of poetry was The Botanic Garden.
Lunar Society
The Lunar Society: These dates indicate the year in which Darwin became friends with
each of these persons, who, in turn, became member so the Lunar Society. The Lunar Society existed from 1765 to 1813.
Prior to 1765:
- Matthew Bolton, originally a buckle maker in Birmingham
- John Whitehurst of Derby, maker of clocks and scientific instruments, pioneer of
geology
After 1765:
- Josiah Wedgwood, potter 1765
- Dr. William Small, 1765, man of science, formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy at
the College of William and Mary, where Thomas Jefferson was an appreciative pupil
- Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 1766, inventor
- James Watt, 1767, improver of steam engine
- James Keir, 1767, pioneer of the chemical industry
- Thomas Day, 1768, eccentric and author
- Dr. William Withering, 1775, the death of Dr. Small left an opening for a
physician in the group.
- Joseph Priestly, 1780, experimental chemist and discoverer of many substances.
- Samuel Galton, 1782, a Quaker gunmaker with a taste for science, took Darwin's
place after Darwin moved to Derby.
Darwin also established a lifelong friendship with Benjamin Franklin, who shared
Darwin's support for the American and French revolutions. The Lunar Society was instrumental as the intellectual driving force
behind England's Industrial Revolution.
Other achievements
In addition to the Lunar Society, Erasmus Darwin belonged to the influential Derby Philosophical
Society, as did his brother-in-law Samuel Fox (see family tree below). He experimented with the use of air and gases to
alleviate infections and cancers in patients. A Pneumatic Institution was established at Clifton in 1799 for clinically testing these ideas. He conducted research into the formation of
clouds, on which he published in 1788. He also inspired Robert
Weldon's Somerset Coal Canal caisson
lock.
Darwin's experiments in galvanism were an important source of inspiration for
Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.
Cosmological speculation
Contemporary literature dates the cosmological theories of the Big Bang and Big Crunch to the 19th and 20th centuries. However Erasmus Darwin had speculated on these sorts of events in
The Botanic Garden, A Poem in Two Parts: Part 1, The Economy of Vegetation, 1791:
Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; —
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.
Inventions
Darwin was the inventor of several devices, though he did not patent any. He believed this would damage his reputation as a
doctor, and encouraged his friends to patent their own modifications of his designs.
Rocket engine
In notes dating to 1779, Darwin made a sketch of a simple liquid-fuel rocket engine,
with hydrogen and oxygen tanks connected by plumbing and pumps to an elongated combustion chamber and expansion nozzle, a concept
not to be seen again until one century later.
Anti-slavery campaigner
Darwin, along with other members of the Lunar Society, opposed the slave trade, and attacked it in The Botanic Garden (1789 - 1791), in
both The Loves of Plants (1789) and The Economy of Vegetation (1791).
Quotations
Organic life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in ocean's pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin and feet and wing.
— The Temple of Nature 1802
For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to
cause the effects themselves. This idea is analogous to the improving excellence observable in every part of the creation; such
as in the progressive increase of the solid or habitable parts of the earth from water; and in the progressive increase of the
wisdom and happiness of its inhabitants; and is consonant to the idea of our present situation being a state of probation, which
by our exertion we may improve, and are consequently responsible for our actions.
— Zoönomia, vol. 1 1794
Major publications
- Erasmus Darwin, A Botanical Society at Lichfield. A System of Vegetables, according to their classes, orders... translated
from the 13th edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Vegetabiliium. 2 vols., 1783, Lichfield, J. Jackson, for Leigh and Sotheby,
London.
- Erasmus Darwin, A Botanical Society at Lichfield. The Families of Plants with their natural characters...Translated from
the last edition of Linnaeus’ Genera Plantarum. 1787, Lichfield, J. Jackson, for J. Johnson, London.
- Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden, Part I, The Economy of Vegetation. 1791 London, J. Johnson.
- Part II, The Loves of the Plants. 1789, London, J. Johnson.
- Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia; or, The Laws of Organic Life, 1792, Part I. London, J. Johnson,
- Part I-III. 1796, London, J. Johnson.
- Erasmus Darwin, A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools, 1797, Derby, for J. Johnson.
- Erasmus Darwin, Phytologia; or, The Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. 1800, London, J. Johnson.
- Erasmus Darwin, The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society. 1806-07, London, J. Johnson.
Family tree
References
- Desmond King-Hele, Erasmus Darwin: A Life of Unequalled Achievement 1999, Giles de la Mare Publishers
- Desmond G. King-Hele (ed.), Charles Darwin's 'The Life of Erasmus Darwin 2002, Cambridge University Press
- Desmond G. King-Hele, The Letters of Erasmus Darwin 1981, Cambridge University Press
- Jennifer Uglow, Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 2003, Faber and Faber
Appearance in Fiction and Music
Charles Sheffield, an author noted largely for hard science fiction, wrote a number of stories featuring Darwin in a style quite similar to
Sherlock Holmes. These stories were collected in a single book, The Amazing Dr. Darwin.
Darwin's opposition to slavery in poetry was included by Benjamin Zephaniah in a
reading. This inspired the establishment of the Genomic Dub Collective, whose album includes quotations from Erasmus "Ras" Darwin, his grandson
Charles Darwin and Haile
Selassie.
External links
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