Leonard Darwin

Leonard as a boy with his mother, Emma Darwin

Major Leonard Darwin (15 January 1850 — 26 March 1943), a son of the British naturalist Charles Darwin, was variously a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher. ImageMetadata File history File links Leonard_Darwin. ... Image File history File links (I very much think) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Emma Darwin Emma Darwin (née Wedgwood, 2 May 1808–7 October 1896) was the wife of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. ... Jump to: navigation, search January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ... Jump to: navigation, search In his lifetime Charles Darwin gained international fame as a controversial and influential scientist. ... A Norwegian soldier (a Corporal, armed with an MP-5) A soldier is a person who has enlisted with, or has been conscripted into, the armed forces of a sovereign country and has undergone training and received equipment to defend that country or its interests. ... A politician is an individual involved in politics. ... An economist is someone who studies Economics. ... Jump to: navigation, search Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields. ... Jump to: navigation, search Sir Ronald Fisher Professor Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, FRS (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British eugenicist, evolutionary biologist, geneticist and statistician. ...

Biography

Leonard Darwin was born in 1850 in Down House in Kent. Born into the wealthy Darwin -- Wedgwood family, he was the fourth son and eighth child of the British naturalist Charles Darwin and his wife Emma. He considered himself to be the least intelligent of their children, and was sent to Clapham School in 1862. Jump to: navigation, search 1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Down House, photo by Richard Carter Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ... Darwins family tree The Darwin -- Wedgwood family was a prominent English family, descended from Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, the most notable member of which was Charles Darwin. ... Jump to: navigation, search In his lifetime Charles Darwin gained international fame as a controversial and influential scientist. ... Emma Darwin Emma Darwin (née Wedgwood, 2 May 1808–7 October 1896) was the wife of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Darwin joined the Royal Engineers in 1871. Between 1877 and 1882 he worked for the Intelligence Division of the Ministry of War. In 1890 was promoted to the rank of Major. He left the army and from 1892 to 1895 was a Liberal MP for Lichfield, Staffordshire (his grandfather Josiah Wedgwood II was also an MP). He wrote vigourously on the economic issues of the day, bimetallism, Indian currency reform and municipal trading. The Corps of Royal Engineers (RE), commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1871 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1877 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1882 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... This articles deals with the British ministry, see defence minister for other countries. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Major is the name most commonly given to the military rank equivalent to NATO rank code OF-3. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1892 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1895 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become known as... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. ... Lichfield Cathedral June 2005 Lichfield is a small city in Staffordshire, 110 miles northwest of London and 14 miles north of Birmingham. ... Jump to: navigation, search Staffordshire (abbreviated Staffs) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. ... Josiah Wedgwood II (1769-1843) was Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent. ... In economics, bimetallism is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit can be expressed either with a certain amount of gold or with a certain amount of silver: the ratio between the two metals is fixed by law. ...

He married Elizabeth Fraser in July 1882. Later he married Charlotte Mildred Massingberd (1868–1940), but had no children from either marriage. July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1882 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

He was Chairman of the British Eugenics Society between 1911-1928, (succeeding his cousin once removed Francis Galton), and became Honorary President from 1928 until his death. He was an officer of the Royal Geographical Society from 1908 to 1911, and then its president. In 1912 the University of Cambridge conferred on him the honorary degree of doctor of science. The Eugenics Education Society, later the Eugenics Society (often known as the British Eugenics Society to distinguish it from others) was a society formed in 1907 in the United Kingdom to promote eugenics. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1911 was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A cousin chart identifies the correct name for the relationship between two people with a common ancestor. ... Jump to: navigation, search Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton (February 16, 1822 – January 17, 1911) British anthropologist, eugenicist, explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, psychometrician, and statistician. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1928 was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Royal Geographical Society is a learned society, founded in 1830 with the name Geographical Society of London for the advancement of geographical science, under the patronage of King William IV. It absorbed the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa (founded by Joseph Banks in... Jump to: navigation, search 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1911 was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ...

Darwin played an important part in the life of the geneticist and statistician Ronald Fisher, supporting him intellectually, morally and sometimes financially. When Fisher was elected to the Royal Society Darwin naturally congratulated him. In reply Fisher wrote, "I knew you would be glad, and your pleasure is as good to me almost as though my own father were still living." (February 25th 1929) Darwin always treated Fisher with enormous tact and generosity. A perfect example came later in 1929. Some years before, after a disagreement, Fisher had resigned from the Royal Statistical Society. Darwin regretted the development and engineered Fisher's re-entry by making him the gift of a life-time subscription to the society. (Letters of 25 and 27 June.) Fisher's 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection is dedicated to Darwin. After Darwin's death in 1943 Fisher wrote to Darwin's niece, Margaret Keynes, "My very dear friend Leonard Darwin... was surely the kindest and wisest man I ever knew". Jump to: navigation, search Sir Ronald Fisher Professor Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, FRS (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British eugenicist, evolutionary biologist, geneticist and statistician. ... The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is claimed to be the oldest learned society still in existence. ... The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK. Founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London, it has 7200 members in the UK and the rest of the world, around 1500 of whom are professionally qualified. ... The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection is a book by Ronald Fisher. ...

References

• A. W. F. Edwards, ‘Darwin, Leonard (1850-1943)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

• The editor's introduction to the volume of Darwin-Fisher correspondence (links below) has a sketch of Darwin's life.

Two of Darwin's nieces, daughters of George Howard Darwin, described their uncle. Gwen Raverat wrote about "Uncle Lennie." George Howard Darwin Sir George Howard Darwin, F.R.S. (July 9, 1845 – December 7, 1912) was a British astronomer and mathematician, the second son and fifth child of Charles and Emma Darwin. ... Gwendoline Gwen Darwin (1885-1957) was a celebrated English wood engraving artist who co-founded the Society of Wood Engravers in England. ...

• Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood, first published in 1952 by Faber & Faber.

Margaret Keynes, wife of Geoffrey Keynes, wrote a more formal piece which was published in the Economic Journal. Jump to: navigation, search 1952 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes (March 25, 1887 in Cambridge - July 5, 1982, in Cambridge) was an English surgeon, physician, scholar and bibliophile. ...

• Obituary (in Notes and Memoranda) Economic Journal, 53, 439-448 (1943)

This was preceded by an account of Darwin's economic writings by the editor of the journal, Margaret's brother-in law, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes explained the decision to publish the niece's "very personal account": "Leonard Darwin's life covered so vast an epoch of change in men's ideas, his own attitudes towards the problems of his age were so characteristic of the best and noblest intelligences of his time, and he grew up in the environment of a family of so immortal a renown ..." (p. 439) Darwin expressed his feelings about Keynes in a letter to Fisher (Correspondence p. 141), "I neither like him nor trust him ... But he’s very clever ..." Jump to: navigation, search John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (pronounced kānz / kAnze), ) (June 5, 1883 – April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal. ...

External links

• Darwin — Fisher correspondence with a sketch of Darwin's life

The original letters have been scanned and are available at

• Calendar of Correspondence with Leonard Darwin

Fisher's tribute to Darwin is in his letter of thanks to Margaret Keynes

• Calendar of Correspondence with Margaret Keynes

Information about Leonard's correspondence with his father can be found at

• The Darwin Correspondence Online Database