50-516: Erasmus Robert Darwin FRS (12 December 1731 – 18 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment , he was also a natural philosopher , physiologist , slave-trade abolitionist , inventor, freemason , and poet. His poems included much natural history , including a statement of evolution and the relatedness of all forms of life . He
100-422: A Birmingham merchant, and moved away. There was also a rumour that Darwin fathered another child, this time with a married woman. A Lucy Swift gave birth in 1771 to a baby, also named Lucy, who was christened a daughter of her mother and William Swift. It has been suggested that the father was really Darwin. However, it is more likely that this child was the legitimate daughter of Lamech Swift, at that time owner of
150-735: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote
200-600: A concept not to be seen again until one century later. [REDACTED] Erasmus Darwin House , his home in Lichfield , Staffordshire, is a museum dedicated to him and his life's work. A secondary school at Burntwood, near Lichfield, was renamed Erasmus Darwin Academy in 2011. A science building on the Clifton campus of Nottingham Trent University is named after him. Fellow of
250-406: A system of pathology and a chapter on ' Generation '. In the latter, he anticipated some of the views of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , which foreshadowed the modern theory of evolution . Erasmus Darwin's works were read and commented on by his grandson Charles Darwin the naturalist. Erasmus Darwin based his theories on David Hartley 's psychological theory of associationism . The essence of his views
300-565: Is Susanna Wright , who was raised in Lancashire and became an American colonist associated with the Midlands Enlightenment. It is not known whether Darwin and Wright knew each other, although they definitely knew many people in common. Other women who received substantial education and who participated in the broader world (albeit sometimes anonymously) whom Darwin definitely knew were Maria Jacson and Anna Seward . These dates indicate
350-1321: Is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of
400-725: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and
450-509: Is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion that one and the same kind of living filament is and has been the cause of all organic life: Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with
500-472: Is described in unflattering detail in his Biographical Memoirs, printed by the Monthly Magazine in 1802. Darwin, the description reads, "was of middle stature, in person gross and corpulent; his features were coarse, and his countenance heavy; if not wholly void of animation, it certainly was by no means expressive. The print of him, from a painting of Mr. Wright, is a good likeness. In his gait and dress he
550-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which
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#1732858830190600-814: The Derby Silk Mill and his wife Dorothy, who became a friend of the two Parker girls. Lucy Swift, later known as Lucy Hardcastle after her marriage, went on to be known as a botanist and teacher. In 1775, Darwin met Elizabeth Pole, daughter of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore , and wife of Colonel Edward Pole (1718–1780); but as she was married, Darwin could only make his feelings known for her through poetry. When Edward Pole died, Darwin married Elizabeth and moved to her home, Radbourne Hall , four miles (6.4 km) west of Derby. The hall and village are these days known as Radbourne . In 1782, they moved to Full Street, Derby. They had four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and three daughters: Darwin's personal appearance
650-457: The University of Edinburgh Medical School . Darwin settled in 1756 as a physician at Nottingham, but met with little success and so moved the following year to Lichfield to try to establish a practice there. A few weeks after his arrival, using a novel course of treatment, he restored the health of a young fisherman whose death seemed inevitable. This ensured his success in the new locale. Darwin
700-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to
750-474: The struggle for existence . His poetry was admired by Wordsworth , while Coleridge was intensely critical, writing, "I absolutely nauseate Darwin's poem". It often made reference to his interests in science; for example botany and steam engines . The last two leaves of Darwin's A plan for the conduct of female education in boarding schools (1797) contain a book list, an apology for the work, and an advert for "Miss Parkers School". The school advertised on
800-476: The "man's world", although not be allowed to participate in it. The text was written seven years after A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft , which has the central argument that women should be educated in a rational manner to give them the opportunity to contribute to society. Some women of Darwin's era were receiving more substantial education and participating in the broader world. An example
850-475: The "three great objects of desire" for every organism: "lust, hunger, and security." A similar "survival of the fittest" view in Zoönomia is Erasmus' view on how a species "should" propagate itself. Erasmus' idea that "the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved". Today, this is called the theory of survival of the fittest . His grandson Charles Darwin posited
900-517: The English names of plants that we use today. Darwin then wrote The Loves of the Plants , a long poem, which was a popular rendering of Linnaeus' works. Darwin also wrote Economy of Vegetation , and together the two were published as The Botanic Garden . Among other writers he influenced were Anna Seward and Maria Jacson . Darwin's most important scientific work, Zoonomia (1794–1796), contains
950-562: The Lichfield Botanical Society (despite the name, composed of only three men, Erasmus Darwin, Sir Brooke Boothby and Mr John Jackson, proctor of Lichfield Cathedral ) to translate the works of the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus from Latin into English. This took seven years. The result was two publications: A System of Vegetables between 1783 and 1785, and The Families of Plants in 1787. In these volumes, Darwin coined many of
1000-752: The Lunar Society, and especially Darwin, opposed the slave trade . He attacked it in The Botanic Garden (1789–1791), and in The Loves of Plants (1789), The Economy of Vegetation (1791), and the Phytologia (1800). In 1761, Darwin was elected a fellow of the Royal Society . In addition to the Lunar Society, Erasmus Darwin belonged to the influential Derby Philosophical Society , as did his brother-in-law Samuel Fox (see family tree below). He experimented with
1050-536: The Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence,
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#17328588301901100-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of
1150-655: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to
1200-597: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use
1250-563: The cosmological theories of the Big Bang and Big Crunch to the 19th and 20th centuries. However, Erasmus Darwin had speculated on these sorts of events in The Botanic Garden, A Poem in Two Parts: Part 1, The Economy of Vegetation, 1791 : Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time; Near and more near your beamy cars approach, And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; — Flowers of
1300-468: The course of the last Spring, from which, after repeated bleedings, by himself and a surgeon, he with great difficulty recovered." Darwin's death, the Biographical Memoirs continues, "is variously accounted for: it is supposed to have been caused by the cold fit of an inflammatory fever. Dr. Fox, of Derby, considers the disease which occasioned it to have been angina pectoris ; but Dr. Garlicke, of
1350-494: The daughter of Charles Howard, a Lichfield solicitor. They had four sons and one daughter, two of whom (a son and a daughter) died in infancy: The first Mrs. Darwin died in 1770. A governess , Mary Parker, was hired to look after Robert. By late 1771, employer and employee had become intimately involved and together they had two illegitimate daughters: Susanna and Mary Jr later established a boarding school for girls. In 1782, Mary Sr (the governess) married Joseph Day (1745–1811),
1400-411: The different and fuller theory of natural selection. Charles' theory was that natural selection is the inheritance of changed genetic characteristics that are better adaptations to the environment; these are not necessarily based in "strength" and "activity", which themselves ironically can lead to the overpopulation that results in natural selection yielding nonsurvivors of genetic traits. Erasmus Darwin
1450-515: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use
1500-408: The first sentence of the 1818 Preface to Frankenstein to support his contention that the creation of life is possible. His wife Mary Shelley in her introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein wrote that she overheard her husband talk about Darwin's experiments with Lord Byron about unspecified "experiments of Dr. Darwin" that led to the idea for the novel. Contemporary literature dates
1550-530: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from
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1600-1044: The last page is the one he set up in Ashbourne, Derbyshire , for his two illegitimate children, Susanna and Mary. Darwin regretted that a good education had not been generally available to women in Britain in his time, and drew on the ideas of Locke , Rousseau , and Genlis in organising his thoughts. Addressing the education of middle-class girls, Darwin argued that amorous romance novels were inappropriate and that they should seek simplicity in dress. He contends that young women should be educated in schools, rather than privately at home, and learn appropriate subjects. These subjects include physiognomy, physical exercise, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, and experimental philosophy . They should familiarise themselves with arts and manufactures through visits to sites like Coalbrookdale , and Wedgwood's potteries; they should learn how to handle money, and study modern languages. Darwin's educational philosophy took
1650-423: The obdurate beauty move With soft attentions of Platonic love. Darwin's final long poem, The Temple of Nature , was published posthumously in 1803. The poem was originally titled The Origin of Society . It is considered his best poetic work. It centres on his own conception of evolution . The poem traces the progression of life from micro-organisms to civilised society. The poem contains a passage that describes
1700-509: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II
1750-409: The power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end! Erasmus Darwin also anticipated survival of the fittest in Zoönomia mainly when writing about
1800-546: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates
1850-532: The rolls of the Lodge but it is very possible that he, like Francis, was a Mason. Darwin died suddenly on 18 April 1802, weeks after having moved to Breadsall Priory , just north of Derby . The Monthly Magazine of 1802, in its Biographical Memoirs of the Late Dr. Darwin, reports that "during the last few years, Dr. Darwin was much subject to inflammation in his breast and lungs; he had a very serious attack of this disease in
1900-628: The same place, thinks this opinion not sufficiently well founded. Whatever was the disease, it is not improbable, surely, that the fatal event was hastened by the violent fit of passion with which he was seized in the morning." His body is buried in All Saints' Church, Breadsall . Erasmus Darwin is commemorated on one of the Moonstones , a series of monuments in Birmingham . Darwin formed 'A Botanical Society, at Lichfield' almost always incorrectly named as
1950-416: The same! Darwin was the inventor of several devices, though he did not patent any: he believed this would damage his reputation as a doctor. He encouraged his friends to patent their own modifications of his designs. In notes dating to 1779, Darwin made a sketch of a simple hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine , with gas tanks connected by plumbing and pumps to an elongated combustion chamber and expansion nozzle,
2000-452: The sky! ye too to age must yield, Frail as your silken sisters of the field. Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush, Suns sink on suns, and systems, systems crush, Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, And death and night and chaos mingle all: — Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form, Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and
2050-608: The use of air and gases to alleviate infections and cancers in patients. A Pneumatic Institution was established at Clifton in 1799 for clinically testing these ideas. He conducted research into the formation of clouds, on which he published in 1788. He also inspired Robert Weldon's Somerset Coal Canal caisson lock . In 1792, Darwin was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia . Percy Bysshe Shelley specifically mentions Darwin in
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2100-426: The view that men and women should have different capabilities, skills, interests, and spheres of action, where the woman's education was designed to support and serve male accomplishment and financial reward, and to relieve him of daily responsibility for children and the chores of life. In the context of the times, this program may be read as a modernising influence in the sense that the woman was at least to learn about
2150-561: The year in which Darwin became friends with these people, who, in turn, became members of the Lunar Society . The Lunar Society existed from 1765 to 1813. Before 1765: After 1765: Darwin also established a lifelong friendship with Benjamin Franklin , who shared Darwin's support for the American and French revolutions. The Lunar Society was instrumental as an intellectual driving force behind England's Industrial Revolution . The members of
2200-446: The youngest of seven children of Robert Darwin of Elston (1682–1754), a lawyer and physician, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702–97). The name Erasmus had been used by a number of his family and derives from his ancestor Erasmus Earle , Common Sergent of England under Oliver Cromwell . His siblings were: He was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School, then later at St John's College , Cambridge . He obtained his medical education at
2250-457: Was a highly successful physician for more than fifty years in the Midlands . In 1761, he was elected to the Royal Society . George III invited him to be Royal Physician , but Darwin declined. Darwin married twice and had 14 children, including two illegitimate daughters by an employee, and, possibly, at least one further illegitimate daughter. In 1757 he married Mary (Polly) Howard (1740–1770),
2300-536: Was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family , which includes his grandsons Charles Darwin and Francis Galton . Darwin was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham , a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers. He turned down an invitation from George III to become Physician to the King . Darwin was born in 1731 at Elston Hall , Nottinghamshire, near Newark-on-Trent , England,
2350-432: Was familiar with the earlier proto-evolutionary thinking of James Burnett, Lord Monboddo , and cited him in his 1803 work Temple of Nature. Erasmus Darwin offered the first glimpse of his theory of evolution, obliquely, in a question at the end of a long footnote to his popular poem The Loves of the Plants (1789), which was republished throughout the 1790s in several editions as The Botanic Garden . His poetic concept
2400-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership
2450-566: Was rather clumsy and slovenly, and frequently walked with his tongue hanging out of his mouth." Darwin had been a Freemason throughout his life, in the Time Immemorial Lodge of Cannongate Kilwinning, No. 2, of Scotland. Later on, Sir Francis Darwin , one of his sons, was made a Mason in Tyrian Lodge, No. 253, at Derby, in 1807 or 1808. His son Reginald was made a Mason in Tyrian Lodge in 1804. Charles Darwin 's name does not appear on
2500-554: Was to anthropomorphise the stamen (male) and pistil (female) sexual organs, as bride and groom. In this stanza on the flower Curcuma (also Flax and Turmeric) the "youths" are infertile, and he devotes the footnote to other examples of neutered organs in flowers, insect castes, and finally associates this more broadly with many popular and well-known cases of vestigial organs (male nipples, the third and fourth wings of flies, etc.) Woo'd with long care, CURCUMA cold and shy Meets her fond husband with averted eye: Four beardless youths
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