---
title: "Darwin–Wedgwood family"
chunk: 2/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin–Wedgwood_family"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:05:28.334677+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Sarah Elizabeth Wedgwood (1793–1880).
Josiah Wedgwood (1795–1880) married Caroline Darwin, daughter of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. They are grandparents of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Mary Ann Wedgwood (1796–1798).
Charlotte Wedgwood (1797–1862) was Charles Langton's first wife. After her death he married her cousin, Emily Catherine Darwin; she is the ancestor of Hugh Massingberd, see below.
Henry Allen Wedgwood (1799–1885).
Francis Wedgwood (1800–1888); married, on 26 April 1832 at Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire, Frances Mosley, daughter of Rev. John Peploe Mosley and Sarah Maria Paget and granddaughter of Sir John Parker Mosley and Elizabeth Bayley; and was the grandfather of Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood and great-grandfather of C. V. Wedgwood and Camilla Wedgwood.
Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803–1891), etymologist, philologist and barrister, author of A Dictionary of English Etymology father of Frances Julia Wedgwood (1833–1913), and grandfather of Bishop J. I. Wedgwood. His wife, his first cousin on his mother's side, Frances "Fanny" Wedgwood (née Mackintosh; 1800–1889, daughter of James Mackintosh), was a good friend and correspondent of Harriet Martineau.
Frances (Fanny) Wedgwood (1806–1832).
Emma Wedgwood (1808–1896); married Charles Darwin, son of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood.

=== Thomas Wedgwood ===
Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805). Pioneer in developing photography, friend and patron of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the pet.  Son of Josiah Wedgwood.

=== Samuel Tertius Galton ===

Samuel Tertius Galton married Frances Anne Violetta Darwin (1783–1874), daughter of Erasmus Darwin, see above. They had three sons and four daughters including:

Erasmus Galton (1815–1909), Lord of the Manor of Loxton.
Francis Galton (1822–1911) – Inventor, polymath and father of eugenics. He married Louisa Jane Butler (1822–1897) during 1853 but their union was childless.

=== Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin ===

Sir Francis Sacheverel Darwin was the son of Erasmus Darwin and Elizabeth (née Collier), daughter of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore. Francis was an accomplished travel writer, explorer and naturalist and bravely studied the ravages of the plague on Smyrna at great personal risk. He was the only one to return of his friends who went to the East. A physician to George III, he was knighted by George IV.
On 16 December 1815 he married Jane Harriet Ryle (11 December 1794 – 19 April 1866) at St. George, Hanover Square London. They had many children including:

Mary Jane Darwin (12 February 1817 – 1872), married Charles Carill-Worsley of Platt Hall, near Manchester, in 1840. (Their daughter, Elizabeth, who married Nicolas Tindal, later Tindal-Carill-Worsley, was the mother of Charles and Ralph Tindal-Carill-Worsley—see under 5th generation).
Frances Sarah Darwin (19 July 1822 – 1881), married Gustavus Barton in 1845, widowed 1846 and remarried to Marcus Huish during 1849. She is the stepmother of the art dealer Marcus Bourne Huish.
Edward Levett Darwin (12 April 1821 – 23 April 1901), married Harriett Jessopp during 1850. A solicitor in Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, Edward Levett Darwin was the author, using the pseudonym "High Elms", of Gameskeeper's Manual, a guide for tending game on large estates which shows keen observation of the habits of various animals.

== The third generation ==

=== Charles Darwin ===

The most prominent member of the family, Charles Darwin, proposed the first coherent theory of evolution by means of natural and sexual selection.
Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) was a son of Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood. He married Emma Wedgwood (1808–1896), a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood II and Elizabeth Allen. Charles's mother, Susannah, was a sister to Emma's father, Josiah II. Thus, Charles and Emma were first cousins. Charles' sister Caroline married Emma's brother, Josiah Wedgwood III.
The Darwins had ten children, three of whom died before reaching maturity.

William Erasmus Darwin (1839–1914); graduate of Christ's College Cambridge, he was a banker in Southampton. He married an American Sara Sedgwick (1839–1902), but they did not have any children.
Anne Elizabeth Darwin (1841–1851) died in Great Malvern aged ten and her death caused her father much grief.
Mary Eleanor Darwin (1842–1842) died as a baby.
Henrietta Emma "Etty" Darwin (1843–1927); although she married Richard Litchfield during 1871, the couple never had any children. Etty Darwin edited her mother's private papers (published during 1904) and assisted her father with his work.
George Howard Darwin (1845–1912) (see below)
Elizabeth (Bessy) Darwin (1847–1926); never married and did not have any progeny.
Francis Darwin (1848–1925) (see below).
Leonard Darwin (1850–1943) (see below).
Horace Darwin (1851–1928) (see below).
Charles Waring Darwin (1856–1858) was the tenth child and sixth son of Charles and Emma Darwin. His early death from scarlet fever kept Charles Darwin from attending the first publication of his theory at the joint reading of papers by Alfred Russel Wallace and himself at the meeting of the Linnean Society on 1 July 1858. Wallace was not present either; he was on an expedition.

=== Other notables from the same period ===

==== William Darwin Fox ====

The Rev. William Darwin Fox (1805–1880) was a second cousin of Charles Darwin and an amateur entomologist, naturalist and palaeontologist. Fox became a lifelong friend of Charles Darwin after their first meeting at Christ's College, Cambridge. He married Harriet Fletcher, who gave him five children, and after her death married Ellen Sophia Woodd, who provided the remainder of his 17 children.
After his graduation from Cambridge during 1829, Fox was appointed as the Vicar of Osmaston and during 1838 became the Rector of Delamere, a living he retained until his retirement during 1873.

== The fourth generation ==

=== George Howard Darwin ===
George Howard Darwin (1845–1912) was an astronomer and mathematician. He married Martha (Maud) du Puy of Philadelphia. They had five children:

Charles Galton Darwin (see below).
William Robert Darwin (married Sarah Monica Slingsby).
Gwendoline "Gwen" Darwin, artist; (see below).
Leonard Darwin 1899.
Margaret Elizabeth Darwin (married Sir Geoffrey Keynes, bibliophile) (see below).