Charles Darwin died

Charles Robert Darwin was born 12 February 1809 at The Mount, the Darwin home in Shrewsbury, in the county of Shropshire. His father, Dr. Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848), was a prosperous physician and businessman; his mother was Susanna Wedgwood (1765-1817), daughter of the famous founder of the Wedgwood Pottery works. Charles was the fifth of six children, and the youngest son.

Although he did not appear to benefit from the formal education he was given in Edinburgh and at Cambridge, Charles amply made up for it with his voyage of exploration on the Beagle. Upon his return to England, he married his cousin, Emma Wedgwood on 29 January 1839 at St. Peter's Anglican Church near her home at Maer.

For a few years they lived in London, and then retired to Down House, where Charles worked and studied, with the result that eventually his ideas completely changed the way that scientists now look at the world. Charles Darwin died 19 April 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Erasmus Darwin and Mary Howard

The first famous Darwin was Charles’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a physician, natural philosopher, poet, and member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group of intellectuals, industrialists, and natural philosophers who met regularly between 1765 and 1813. He was a close friend of Josiah Wedgwood, whose creativity and dedication to developing pottery and other industries made history in the Industrial Revolution in England.

Erasmus Darwin was born in Elston, near Newark, the son of a lawyer and naturalist. He was educated at Cambridge and at Edinburgh’s medical school, and then settled in Litchfield, where he was a great success as a physician. He became known as well for his verse and scientific pursuits. His first wife, Mary Howard, was the daughter of Charles Howard, a Litchfield solicitor. She was just 17 when they married in 1757.

Erasmus and Mary Howard had five children:

Charles Darwin (1758-1778) died from an infection while a medical student in Edinburgh
Erasmus Darwin (1759–1799) unmarried, suicide
Elizabeth Darwin, 1763 (died as an infant)
Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848) married Susannah Wedgwood and became the father of Charles Robert Darwin
William Alvey Darwin, (1767) (died as an infant)

After Mary’s death, Erasmus had two children by his children’s governess, Mary Parker:

Susanna Parker (1772–1856)
Mary Parker (1774–1859)

In 1781 Erasmus married a second time, to Elizabeth Colyer/Collier Pole, a widow. Erasmus moved to her home, in Derby, where he continued his medical practice. They had seven children: