Erasmus Darwin IV

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2nd Lt. Erasmus Darwin in uniform of The Green Howards.
The Menin Gate.

Erasmus Darwin

First World War. He was the grandson of the naturalist Charles Darwin
.

Family and early life

Darwin was born in

his ill health;[2] his heart was failing and would eventually result in his death in April 1882.[2] Darwin was named after his great uncle Erasmus Alvey Darwin who died 3 months before his birth, and after his great-great-grandfather Erasmus Darwin
.

Darwin had two younger sisters;

Lady Barlow.[1]

He was brought up at Cambridge and at

Elizabeth Darwin (Aunt Bessy).[4] His paternal grandmother, Emma Darwin
("grandmama"), resided in part at Down House and in part at Cambridge until her death in 1896.

Education and business career

Darwin was schooled at

MA in 1910.[7]

After graduating, he worked for

Bolckow and Vaughan in Middlesbrough, where he became company secretary. He was also a director of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, the firm founded by his father.[8] He went on a business trip to North America with John Edward Stead.[9]

Military career and death

Captain John Vivian Nancarrow,[10] who was reported buried with Darwin.

Darwin was commissioned as a

St Julien."[9] He was 33 years old and unmarried.[1]

A lengthy article, part

news article, part obituary and part eulogy was printed in The Times,[6] where his cousin Bernard Darwin was on the staff.[13] His cousin, Lady Margaret Keynes, later recalled "...on April 23 [1915], Rupert Brooke had died on his way to Gallipoli with the Naval Division, and my cousin Erasmus... ...had been killed the day after near Ypres. Reading the appalling list of casualties in The Times had become a daily terror lest it contained the names of friends and acquaintances, as it so often did."[14]

More details were published in the book Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters by his Aunt Etty.[9] These included a letter from Cpl Wearmouth to Ida, a letter from his commanding officer Col. Maurice Bell and letter from Pte Wood, as well as a letter from his former colleague John Edward Stead.[9] Darwin family letters noted: "The Royal Irish Fusiliers recovered his body along with that of Captain Nancarrow and the two were buried together with a little cross over it by a farmhouse near St Julien." However this grave must have been destroyed in the years of subsequent fighting and he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. Commanding Officer, Colonel Bell wrote of him:- "Loyalty, courage and devotion to duty, he had them all.....He died in an attack which gained many compliments to the Battn. He was right in front. It was a man's death."

A separate memorial book by Bernard, Erasmus Darwin: Born 7 December 1881, Killed in Action 24 April 1915 was also published.

With intense fighting in the

Saltburn by the Sea
war memorial, which stands close to his last home in Albion Terrace, as listed in the 1911 census.

References

  1. ^ a b c Burke's Landed Gentry Darwin of Downe
  2. ^
    E. Janet Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place
  3. ^ "| Darwin Correspondence Project". Darwinproject.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  4. ^ a b c Gwen Raverat (1952) Period Piece
  5. ISBN 978-0950752808
    .
  6. ^ a b Second Lieut. E. Darwin. Grandson of the Scientist Killed in Action. The Times, Friday, 30 April 1915; pg. 4; Issue 40842; col D
  7. ^ "Trinity College Chapel Role of Honour WWI" (PDF). Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 June 2016. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  8. ^ M. Cattermole, A.F. Wolfe (1987) Horace Darwin's Shop: A History of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company
  9. ^ a b c d Henrietta Litchfield (1915) Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters. See http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1553.1&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
  10. ^ a b "Casualty Details | CWGC".
  11. ^ "Gazette listing" (PDF). www.london-gazette.co.uk. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  12. ^ John Lewis-Stempel Six Weeks: The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War: The Life and Death of the British Officer in the First World War
  13. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011 accessed 1 April 2013
  14. ^ Margaret Keynes A House by the River: Newnham Grange to Darwin College
  15. ^ "Casualty Details | CWGC".
  16. ^ "Trinity College Chapel - Gallery". trinitycollegechapel.com.
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