Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin (3 September 1758 – 15 May 1778) was the eldest son of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) and Mary Howard (1740–70), and was the uncle of the famous naturalist Charles Darwin (though dying before his nephew's birth). He showed considerable promise while studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but died while still a student. Childhood and classical education A memoir by his father recalled young Charles Darwin as having a precocious interest in science, from infancy being: Like his father, he had a stammer as a child. In an attempt to cure this by learning the French language, around the end of October 1766 the eight-year-old Charles Darwin was sent to Paris with a private tutor, the Reverend Samuel Dickenson. They travelled, and brought back many aromatic plants of Montpellier from Gouan. Darwin was only allowed to converse in French, and by their return in or possibly after March 1767 he was able to speak fluent French without a stammer, but the problem persisted when he spoke English. He went on to study at Lichfield School which had, in his father's view, an excessive emphasis on the Classics. His mother suffered from a long illness, and died on 30 July 1770. Erasmus showed deep distress, but was resilient and after about a year found another partner. Charles continued to show impressive abilities as he grew up. He made friends with some of his father's fellow members of the Lunar Society, including William Small and Matthew Boulton. In September 1774 Darwin entered Christ Church, University of Oxford at the age of 16, and he matriculated there on 30 March 1775. He studied at Oxford for less than a year, as he disliked the curriculum as pursuing "classical elegance" and "sigh'd to be removed to the robuster exercises of the medical schools of Edinburgh."