Erasmus Darwin

(b. Dec. 12, 1731, Elston Hall, Elston, Nottinghamshire – d. April 18, 1802, Breadsall Priory, Breadsall, Derbyshire )

Gender: M

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a philosopher, inventor and poet. He was the youngest of seven children of Robert Darwin (1682-1754), a Nottingham lawyer, and Elizabeth Hill (1702-1797). He moved to Lichfield, where he practised as a physician for over fifty years. He married Mary Howard (1740-1770) and they had five children; his son Robert was the father of Charles Darwin (1758-1778), author of The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species. Mary died of a combination of illness, drink and opium, and Darwin went on to have a further seven children with his second wife, Elizabeth Pole, and also fathered two or three illegitimate children. In 1789, Darwin wrote a long poem (four thousand lines of rhyming couplets) entitled The Loves of the Plants (later re-published as The Botanic Garden), a verse rendering of the works of the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, whose works Darwin had translated from Latin. The plants are anthropomorphised, and their propagation described in romantic or sexual terms. Darwin’s views on the origin of organic life anticipated the theory of evolution, and influenced his grandson. Darwin was interested in female education, and published A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools (Derby: printed by J. Drewry for J. Johnson, 1797).

Also known as:

Erasmus Darwin

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