Ellen Darwin

Ellen Wordsworth Darwin (née Crofts; 13 January 1856 – 28 August 1903) was an academic, a fellow and lecturer in English Literature at Newnham College in Cambridge (1879–1883), a member of the private and scholarly Ladies Dining Society at Cambridge and the second wife of the botanist Sir Francis Darwin, son of Charles Darwin. Their daughter was the poet Frances Cornford. Family and early life Born Ellen Wordsworth Crofts in Leeds, the daughter of Ellen née Wordsworth, the daughter of a Leeds industrialist, and John Crofts, a magistrate and worsted and woollen manufacturer, she was a cousin of the utilitarian philosopher and economist Henry Sidgwick. Her older brother was Ernest Crofts , a painter of historical and military scenes. Later life A student at Newnham College, Cambridge between 1874 and 1877, she returned there to teach English literature from 1878. A close friend from her Newnham days was the British classical scholar and linguist Jane Ellen Harrison. Following her marriage in 1883 to Charles Darwin's son, botanist Francis Darwin, she had to relinquish her academic post. Francis already had a son from his first marriage. Bernard Darwin had been brought up by his grandparents Emma and Charles Darwin (and by Emma alone after the death of Charles in 1882).