Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–72) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
George Henry Lewes was an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He was also an amateur physiologist. American feminist Margaret Fuller called Lewes a "witty, French, flippant sort of man". He became part of the mid-Victorian ferment of ideas which encouraged discussion of Darwinism, positivism, and religious skepticism. However, he is perhaps best known today for having openly lived with Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, as soulmates whose lives and writings were enriched by their relationship, though they never married each other.
Samuel Wilberforce, FRS was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce. Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his day. He is now best remembered for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution at a debate in 1860.
St. George Jackson Mivart was an English biologist. He is famous for starting as an ardent believer in natural selection and later becoming one of its fiercest critics. Mivart attempted to reconcile the theory of evolution as propounded by Charles Darwin with the beliefs of the Catholic Church but was condemned by both Darwin and the Church. His belief in a soul created by God and insistence that evolutionism was not incompatible with the existence of such a God brought him into conflict with other evolutionists, while his theological theories on hell and on the compatibility between science and Catholicism led him to clash with the Church.
Robert Edmond Grant MD FRCPEd FRS FRSE FZS FGS was a British anatomist and zoologist.
The Darwin–Wedgwood family are members of two connected families, each noted for particular prominent 18th-century figures: Erasmus Darwin, a physician and natural philosopher, and Josiah Wedgwood, a noted potter and founder of the eponymous Wedgwood and Sons pottery company. The Darwin and Wedgwood families were on friendly terms for much of their history and members intermarried, notably Charles Darwin, who married Emma Wedgwood.
Sir Joseph Fayrer, 1st Baronet FRS FRSE FRCS FRCP KCSI LLD was a British physician who served as Surgeon General in India. He is noted for his writings on medicine, work on public health and his studies particularly on the treatment of snakebite, in India. He was also involved in official investigation on cholera, in which he did not accept the idea, proposed by Robert Koch, of germs as the cause of cholera.
Between 1860 and 1868, the life and work of Charles Darwinfrom Orchids to Variation continued with research and experimentation on evolution, carrying out tedious work to provide evidence of the extent of natural variation enabling artificial selection. He was repeatedly held up by his illness, and continued to find relaxation and interest in the study of plants. His studies of insect pollination led to publication of his book Fertilisation of Orchids as his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection, explaining the complex ecological relationships and making testable predictions. As his health declined, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with inventive experiments to trace the movements of climbing plants.
For much of his adult life, Charles Darwin's health was repeatedly compromised by an uncommon combination of symptoms, leaving him severely debilitated for long periods of time. However, in some ways this may have helped his work, and Charles Darwin wrote "Even ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement."
The Huxley family is a British family; several of its members have excelled in science, medicine, arts and literature. The family also includes members who occupied senior positions in the public service of the United Kingdom.
Between 1873 and 1882, the life and work of Charles Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms continued with investigations into carnivorous and climbing plants that had begun with his previous work. Worries about family illnesses contributed to his interest in Galton's ideas of "hereditary improvement". He continued to help with the work of Downe parish church and associated village amenities, despite problems with control being seized by a new High Church vicar, and he remained on good terms with the Church's patron, the Revd. John Brodie Innes. There was continuing interest in Charles Darwin's views on religion, but he remained reticent.
The Westminster Review was a quarterly British publication. Established in 1823 as the official organ of the Philosophical Radicals, it was published from 1824 to 1914. James Mill was one of the driving forces behind the liberal journal until 1828.
Erasmus Alvey Darwin, nicknamed Eras or Ras, was the older brother of Charles Darwin, born five years earlier. They were brought up at the family home, The Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was the only other son besides Charles, the fourth of six children of Susannah and Robert Darwin, and the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and of Josiah Wedgwood, a family of the Unitarian church. He was a member of the semi-secretive Cambridge Apostles society, a debating club largely reserved for the brightest students.
Edwin Lankester FRS, FRMS, MRCS was an English surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera in London: he was the first public analyst in England.
Edward Clodd was an English banker, writer and anthropologist. He had a great variety of literary and scientific friends, who periodically met at Whitsunday gatherings at his home at Aldeburgh in Suffolk.
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was an English educationalist and artist, and a leading mid-19th-century feminist and women's rights activist. She published her influential Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women in 1854 and the English Woman's Journal in 1858. Bodichon co-founded Girton College, Cambridge (1869). Her brother was the Arctic explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith.
Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet, FRCP was a British doctor and historian, best known for his work with the Royal College of Physicians and his writings on history of medicine. Born in Higher Broughton, Salford, Lancashire, the only child of abolitionist and social reformer Rebecca Moore, née Fisher, of Limerick and the noted Irish political economist Robert Ross Rowan Moore, Moore worked in a cotton mill before studying natural sciences in Cambridge and then going on to study comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Charles Christian Hennell was an English merchant, known as a Unitarian apologist for his work An Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity.
John Chapman (1801–1854) was an English engineer and writer. At different times in his career, he was involved with lace-making machinery, journalism, Hansom cabs and the promotion of railways, cotton and irrigation in India.
