Henrietta Emma Litchfield (née Darwin; 25 September 1843
– 17 December 1927) was a daughter of
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
and his wife
Emma Wedgwood.
Henrietta was born at
Down House,
Downe, Kent, in 1843. She was Darwin's third daughter and the eldest daughter to reach adulthood after the eldest,
Annie, died aged 10, and a second daughter, Mary, died before she was a month old.
She and her brother
Frank helped their father with his work, and Henrietta helped edit ''
The Descent of Man
''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of b ...
''.
On 31 August 1871, she married
Richard Buckley Litchfield,
who was born in Yarpole, near Leominster, in 1832;
the couple had no children. She was widowed on 11 January 1903, when Richard died in
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ci ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
;
he was buried in the English Cemetery, Cannes.
Henrietta edited Charles Darwin's biography of his grandfather
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet.
His poem ...
, ''
The Life of Erasmus Darwin
''The Life of Erasmus Darwin'' is the 1879 biography of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) by his grandson Charles Darwin and the German biologist Ernst Krause.
Ernst Krause wrote a paper on the scientific works Erasmus Darwin which was published in the ...
'', and ''
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
''The Autobiography of Charles Darwin'' is an autobiography by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.
Darwin wrote the text, which he entitled ''Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character'', for his family. He states that he star ...
'', removing several contentious passages. She also edited her mother's private papers (''
Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters'') (1904). She responded to the
Lady Hope Story
Elizabeth Reid Cotton, (9 December 1842 – 8 March 1922) who became Lady Hope when she married Sir James Hope in 1877, was a British evangelist active in the Temperance movement.
In 1915, she claimed to have visited the British naturalist C ...
that her father had undergone a
deathbed conversion by writing an article in ''The Christian'' in 1922 saying it "
adno foundation whatsoever". She died in
Burrows Hill Burrows may refer to:
* Plural of burrow
* Burrows (surname), people with the surname ''Burrows''
Places
* Burrows (electoral district), a provincial electoral district in Manitoba, Canada
* Burrows, Saskatchewan, Canada
* Burrows, Indiana, Unit ...
,
Gomshall,
Surrey, aged 84. An obituary was in ''The Times''.
[The Times, Saturday, Dec 24, 1927; pg. 10; Issue 44773; col B Mrs. Litchfield. Darwin's Daughter And Helper. A correspondent. Obituaries]
She is buried in St Mary the Virgin Churchyard,
Downe, Kent.
VIAF
References
*
Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood – an autobiographical work by
Gwen Raverat
Gwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat (née Darwin; 26 August 1885 – 11 February 1957), was an English wood engraver who was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers. Her memoir ''Period Piece (book), Period Piece'' was published in 1952.
Bi ...
.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Litchfield, Henrietta
1843 births
1927 deaths
Darwin–Wedgwood family
People from Downe