Leonard Darwin
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
naturalist Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, was variously a soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, eugenicist
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
.
Biography
Leonard Darwin was born in 1850 in Down HouseDown House
Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theories of evolution by natural selection which he had conceived in London before moving to Downe....
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Born into the wealthy Darwin-Wedgwood family, he was the last of Darwin's immediate offspring to die. He was the fourth son and eighth child of the British naturalist Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and his wife Emma (née Wedgwood)
Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species...
. He considered himself to be the least intelligent of their children (brothers Frank, George
George Darwin
Sir George Howard Darwin, FRS was an English astronomer and mathematician.-Biography:Darwin was born at Down House, Kent, the second son and fifth child of Charles and Emma Darwin...
and Horace
Horace Darwin
Sir Horace Darwin, KBE, FRS , a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was a civil engineer.Darwin was born in Down House in 1851, the fifth son and ninth child of the British naturalist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma, the youngest of their seven children that survived to adulthood.He was...
were all elected Fellows of the Royal Society) and was sent to Clapham School in 1862.
Darwin joined the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
in 1871. Between 1877 and 1882 he worked for the Intelligence Division of the Ministry of War
Ministry of War
A Ministry of War or Ministry for War is an administrative, supply and services agency of an army, as opposed to the entire military establishment. Both Mexico and Brazil both still maintain a War Department for the support of their armies...
. He went on several scientific expeditions, including the Transits of Venus
Transit of Venus
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun...
of 1874 and 1882.
In 1890 was promoted to the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
. He left the army and from 1892 to 1895 was a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Lichfield constituency
Lichfield (UK Parliament constituency)
Lichfield is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...
in Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
(his grandfather Josiah Wedgwood II
Josiah Wedgwood II
Josiah Wedgwood II , the son of the English potter Josiah Wedgwood, continued his father's firm and was Member of Parliament for Stoke-upon-Trent from 1832 to 1835...
had also been an MP). He wrote vigorously on the economic issues of the day, bimetallism
Bimetallism
In economics, bimetallism is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent both to a certain quantity of gold and to a certain quantity of silver; such a system establishes a fixed rate of exchange between the two metals...
, Indian currency reform
History of the rupee
Ancient India, presently modern states of Pakistan and north-western India, was one of the earliest issuers of coins in the world , along with the Chinese wen and Lydian staters....
and municipal trading.
He married Elizabeth Frances Fraser in July 1882, but she died on 13 January 1898. In 1900 he married his first cousin Charlotte Mildred Massingberd (1868–1940). She was daughter of Edmund Langton (1841–1875) and his second wife Charlotte Wedgwood. Their shared ancestor was their maternal grandfather Josiah Wedgwood II
Josiah Wedgwood II
Josiah Wedgwood II , the son of the English potter Josiah Wedgwood, continued his father's firm and was Member of Parliament for Stoke-upon-Trent from 1832 to 1835...
. Charlotte Mildred Massingberd's paternal grandfather Charles Langton (1801–1886) also married Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's sister Emily Catherine Darwin after Charlotte Wedgwood's death. Since Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and Emma Wedgwood were also cousins, Charlotte Mildred Massingberd was also a second cousin on his father's side. He had no children from either marriage.
He was President of the Royal Geographical Society
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
from 1908 to 1911. He was then Chairman of the British Eugenics Society between 1911-1928 (succeeding his half-cousin once removed Francis Galton
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
), and became Honorary President from 1928 until his death. In 1912 the University of Cambridge conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of science.
Darwin played an important part in the life of the geneticist and statistician R.A. Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
, supporting him intellectually, morally and sometimes financially. When Fisher was elected to the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
Darwin naturally congratulated him. In reply Fisher wrote, "I knew you would be glad, and your pleasure is as good to me almost as though my own father were still living." (February 25, 1929) Darwin always treated Fisher with enormous tact and generosity. A perfect example came later in 1929. Some years before, after a disagreement, Fisher had resigned from the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
. Darwin regretted the development and engineered Fisher's re-entry by making him the gift of a life-time subscription to the society. (Letters of 25 and 27 June.) Fisher's 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection is a book by R.A. Fisher first published in 1930 by Clarendon. It is one of the most important books of the modern evolutionary synthesis and is commonly cited in biology books.-Editions:...
is dedicated to Darwin. After Darwin's death in 1943 Fisher wrote to Darwin's niece, Margaret Keynes, "My very dear friend Leonard Darwin... was surely the kindest and wisest man I ever knew".
Works
- 'The Need for Eugenic Reform', Murray, 1926.
- 'What is Eugenics?', London, Watts & Co, 1928, sec. ed. 1929.
External links
- There is a short biography and photographs at Charles and Emma Darwin's children on Darwin Day Celebration
- Information about Leonard's correspondence with his father can be found at The Darwin Correspondence Online Database
- Fisher's tribute to Darwin is in his letter of thanks to Margaret Keynes Calendar of Correspondence with Margaret Keynes
- J. H. Bennett's edition of the Darwin-Fisher correspondence is available on-line at Darwin — Fisher correspondence with a sketch of Darwin's life
- The original letters have been scanned and are available at Calendar of Correspondence with Leonard Darwin