102 LIFE OF 



Margaret Evans, who assisted in nursing him in his last 

 illness, had come to Down nearly forty years before, 

 from Shrewsbury, where her uncle and aunt were in 

 Dr. Darwin's service." 



At Down the family in time numbered nine children, 

 two, however, not surviving childhood; one died in 

 1842, another in 1858. His five sons have already 

 attained distinction or positions of influence. The 

 eldest, William Erasmus, became a banker in South- 

 ampton ; the second, George, was second Wrangler and 

 Smith's Prizeman at Cambridge in 1868, became a Fellow 

 of Trinity, and is now Plumian Professor of Astronomy at 

 his university, having early gained the Fellowship of the 

 Royal Society for his original papers bearing on the 

 evolution of the universe and the solar system, and many 

 other subjects of high mathematical and philosophical 

 interest. His third son, Francis, gained first-class 

 honours in the Cambridge Natural Science Tripos in 

 1870, and is likewise a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 

 recognition of his original botanical investigations. The 

 fourth, Leonard, an officer in the Royal Engineers, has 

 done valuable astronomical work. The fifth, Horace, has 

 devoted himself to mechanical science, and has largely 

 aided in developing the Cambridge Scientific Instrument 

 Company. 



The great thinker, fulfilling his duties as head of a 

 family with singular success, charged with the burden of 

 new thoughts and observations, slowly perfecting his life 

 work, had neither time nor inclination for controversy. 

 He set himself to publish facts, which by their accumula- 

 tion tended to clench his arguments. Soon after the 



