Sir Horace Darwin, (13 May 1851 – 22 September 1928) was an English engineer specializing in the design and manufacture of precision scientific instruments. He was a Fellow of
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
.
Personal life and education

Darwin was born in
Down House
Down House is the former home of the English Natural history, naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London befor ...
in
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
in 1851, the fifth son and ninth child of the British naturalist
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, and the youngest of their seven children who survived to adulthood.
He was educated at a private school in
Woodbridge, Suffolk
Woodbridge is a port town and civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is up the River Deben from the sea. It lies north-east of Ipswich and around north-east of London. In 2011 it had a populat ...
, and at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
, where he graduated BA in 1874.
In January 1880 Darwin and
Emma Cecilia "Ida" Farrer married. She was the daughter of
Thomas Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer and was styled Lady Ida Darwin after her marriage. They had one son and two daughters:
*
Erasmus Darwin IV (7 December 1881 – 24 April 1915) was killed in the
Second Battle of Ypres during the
First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
.
*
Ruth Frances Darwin (1883–1972), married Dr.
William Rees-Thomas, was a notable advocate of
eugenics
Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...
.
*
Emma Nora Darwin (1885–1989) plant geneticist, edited the 1959 edition of ''
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin'' and married the civil servant Sir
Alan Barlow.
He is buried at the
Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge with his wife; his brother Sir
Francis Darwin is interred in the same graveyard. His other brother Sir
George Darwin is buried in the Trumpington Extension Cemetery, Cambridge.
His family home, "the Orchard", in
Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, is now the site of
Murray Edwards College.
Career
In 1881 he co-founded the
Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company[Obituary: Sir Horace Darwin, K.B.E., F.R.S. Nature 122, 580–581 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122580a0] with
Albert George Dew-Smith.
Darwin led the company when the partnership ended in 1891.
He was
Mayor of Cambridge between 1896 and 1897, became a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1903 and was knighted in 1918.
References
External links
Darwin Correspondence database
English civil engineers
Darwin–Wedgwood family
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
People from Downe
1851 births
1928 deaths
Mayors of Cambridge
20th-century English engineers
19th-century English engineers
{{England-mayor-stub