By any standard, Charles and Emma Darwin created a loving, nurturing environment for their 10 offspring. The children were devoted to their father and mother, intensely loyal to the family and to each other, and protective of their father’s reputation.
Three of the children died young: Annie (age 10), Mary Eleanor (three weeks), and developmentally delayed Charles Waring (1.5 years). Annie’s death was devastating to her parents, and Charles reflected on this loss for the rest of his life. He wrote a loving tribute to Annie, and a fond memorial to his toddler son. Mary’s too-short life precluded any such encomium for her.
The Darwin household was an incredibly stimulating place in which to grow up. The children were exposed to nature walks, led by their father, that were replete with biological observations; vacations at the sea shore; and visits to London that were enhanced with the excitement of the zoo, the botanical garden, museums, and exhibitions. They assisted their father in breeding pigeons and in experimenting with plants in the greenhouse and garden. Numerous dogs, kittens, horses, cows, birds, and other domestic animals were available for play and learning. Charles provided an excellent role model in persistence, by means of his eight-year barnacle studies in his home office. Yet the children were not directed or forced into science. They simply absorbed it. It was a routine part of their life, their normal reality. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the family was very wealthy. Expensive hobbies such as photography and mechanical tinkering could be encouraged, and several of the boys became highly adept, later using their skills in their careers.
In the custom of the time, the daughters were educated at home, and this task was joyfully undertaken by Emma. She read to all of her children, and this tradition was continued by Henrietta and Elizabeth. William, the firstborn son, was sent to prep school for a classical education. Charles came to suspect that this was not the best training for the development of a child’s mind. His succeeding sons were all sent to a school near home that instead prepared them for any path they might choose.
Charles was proud of the accomplishments of his surviving children. Each was a unique personality. They were given the freedom to be whatever they could become. They were not expected to follow in their famous father’s footsteps, and they were not envious of each other. The Darwin upbringing infused these offspring with a sense of wonder and curiosity, as well as a scientific methodology that encouraged observation, experimentation, and analysis. This, no doubt, influenced their career paths.
All of the sons except Leonard were Cambridge men like their father. William spent his adult life as a banker, and successfully managed the family’s substantial wealth. Henrietta fulfilled the role of Charles’s secretary and editor, and he relied on her to polish his work. George was probably the most distinguished of the Darwin children, with immense achievements in geophysics and astronomy. Francis was his father’s secretary, lab assistant, coauthor, and biographer. In his spare time, Francis practically invented the fields of plant physiology and the study of plant hormones. Leonard, educated at the Royal Military Academy, was the most broadly based of the Darwin siblings. He exerted a prominent influence in the army, as well as on economics, politics, and eugenics. Horace and his Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company were vitally important to England’s scientific reputation and, eventually, to the war effort during World War I. George, Francis, and Horace were knighted and elected Fellows of the Royal Society. While Charles was aware of some of these honors, how proud he would have been to have known about them all.
As adults, most of the Darwin children gravitated toward one another, eventually coming to live in the same general area of Cambridge. Charles put Emma on a pedestal, and the children kept her there. After their father’s death, they all spent time with their mother, who eventually settled close to her Cambridge-based children. Elizabeth, who lived with her mother until Emma’s death, then remained in Cambridge, near her brothers. Theirs was a close-knit family that genuinely loved one another. This is a reflection on Charles and Emma’s devotion to each other and to the family, which, in turn, promoted the success and general likability of the Darwins.
Charles and Emma raised an extraordinary family, whose individual members accomplished far more than one would have the right to expect. I hope this little book makes that fact more widely known.