A POSTSCRIPT TO “EMMA DARWIN: A CENTURY OF FAMILY LETTERS”

Summary

Since this book was finished Erasmus Darwin, a grandson of Charles and Emma Darwin, has been killed in action. He was only thirty-three years old, and his life was cut short before all its promise could be fulfilled; but he had already shown himself a man of such rare abilities and so fine and lovable a character that it has been felt that some account of him should be put on record. At the request of his aunt, Mrs. Litchfield, I therefore add to her book this little tribute to his memory. I have made use of a notice already published in The Times, and have supplemented it from letters written by the Commanding Officer and some of the men of Erasmus's battalion, and by those of his friends who can speak of a side of his life of which I have no direct knowledge.

Erasmus was the eldest child and only son of Horace and Ida Darwin, and a grandson on his mother's side of the first Lord Farrer. He was born on December 7, 1881, at Cambridge, which was throughout his life the home of his father and mother. He was in Cotton House at Marlborough, and gained an exhibition for mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He came up to Trinity in October, 1901, and took the Mathematical Tripos in his second year, being placed among the Senior Optimes.