2 THE DARWIN FAMILY. 



described as " gentleman," appears to have been a successful 

 man. Whilst retaining his ancestral land at Marton, he ac- 

 quired through his wife and by purchase an estate at Cleat- 

 ham, in the parish of Manton, near Kirton Lindsey, and 

 fixed his residence there. This estate remained in the family 

 down to the year 1760. A cottage with thick walls, some 

 fish-ponds and old trees, now alone show where the " Old 

 Hall " once stood, and a field is still locally known as the 

 "Darwin Charity," from being subject to a charge in favour 

 of the poor of Marton. William Darwin must, at least in 

 part, have owed his rise in station to his appointment in 16 13 

 by James I. to the post of Yeoman of the Royal Armoury of 

 Greenwich. The office appears to have been worth only ^^^ 

 a year, and the duties were probably almost nominal ; he 

 held the post down to his death during the Civil Wars. 



The fact that this William was a royal servant may explain 

 why his son, also named William, served when almost a boy 

 for the King, as " Captain-Lieutenant " in Sir William Pel- 

 ham's troop of horse. On the partial dispersion of the royal 

 armies, and the retreat of the remainder to Scotland, the 

 boy's estates were sequestrated by the Parliament, but they 

 were redeemed on his signing the Solemn League and Cove- 

 nant, and on his paying a fine which must have struck his 

 finances severely ; for in a petition to Charles IL he speaks 

 of his almost utter ruin from having adhered to the royal 

 cause. 



During the Commonwealth, William Darwin became a 

 barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and this circumstance probably led 

 to his marriage with the daughter of Erasmus Earle, serjeant- 

 at-law ; hence his great-grandson, Erasmus Darwin, the Poet, 

 derived his Christian name. He ultimately became Recorder 

 of the city of Lincoln. 



The eldest son of the Recorder, again called William, was 

 born in 1655, and married the heiress of Robert Waring, a 

 member of a good Staffordshire family. This lady inherited 

 from the family of Lassells, or Lascelles, the manor and hall 

 of Elston, near Newark, which has remained ever since in the 



