William Erasmus Darwin was the first-born son of Charles

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 Darwin

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...

, and the subject of psychological

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 studies by his father. He was educated at Rugby School

Rugby School

Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

 and Christ's College

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

 Cambridge, and later became a banker at Grant and Maddison's Union Banking Company in Southampton

Southampton

Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

. In 1877 he married the New Yorker

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 Sara Price Ashburner (1839/401902). William was a great believer in university education being available to all, and championed the establishment of a university college in Southampton in 1902. The Darwins had no children of their own, and after his wife died, William devoted himself much to his nieces Gwen Raverat

Gwen Raverat

Gwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat née Darwin was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England.- Biography :...

, Frances Cornford

Frances Cornford

Frances Crofts Cornford was an English poet.She was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Ellen Crofts, born into the Darwin — Wedgwood family. She was a granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Her elder half-brother was the golf writer Bernard Darwin...

, and Margaret Keynes. William died on 8 September 1914 at Sedbergh

Sedbergh

Sedbergh is a small town in Cumbria, England. It lies about east of Kendal and about north of Kirkby Lonsdale. The town sits just within the Yorkshire Dales National Park...

 in Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

. Raverat remembered him fondly as an eccentric and entirely unselfconscious man in her childhood memoirs Period Piece (1952).
William is primarily notable as a subject of Charles Darwin's studies of infant psychology

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...

. Darwin was very fond of his son; at his birth he called him "a prodigy of beauty & intellect", and named him after his own grandfather Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin

Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...

. During William's first three years his father kept a diary of gestures and facial expressions the infant made. The studies were part of Darwin's comparison between animal and human development, after he had already thoroughly studied orangutan

Orangutan

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

 babies at the London Zoo

London Zoo

London Zoo is the world's oldest scientific zoo. It was opened in London on 27 April 1828, and was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. It was eventually opened to the public in 1847...

. The diary contains observations on the child learning to follow a candle with his eyes after nine days, smiling with his eyes after six weeks and three days, and developing distinctive cries adjusted to specific situations after eleven weeks. He also noticed the development of more profound personality traits, such as reason and, at two-and-a-half years, conscience.

Charles Darwin published his findings in the journal Mind in June 1877, in an article titled "A biographical sketch of an infant". The studies were also an influence behind his work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by Charles Darwin, published in 1872, concerning genetically determined aspects of behaviour. It was published thirteen years after On The Origin of Species and is, along with his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin's main consideration...

, published in 1872. Darwin's work on infant development and child psychology inspired other academics, such as the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 psychologist William Preyer

William Thierry Preyer

William Thierry Preyer was an English-born physiologist who worked in Germany.-Biography:Preyer was born in Rusholme at Manchester. He studied physiology and chemistry at Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1862...

 and the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 James Mark Baldwin

James Mark Baldwin

James Mark Baldwin was an American philosopher and psychologist who was educated at Princeton under the supervision of Scottish philosopher James McCosh and who was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at the university...

, who acknowledged Darwin's influence in his 1913 History of Psychology.