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 ...

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

, 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 CompanyObituary: 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