Erasmus Darwin Barlow

Erasmus Darwin Barlow, FRCPsych, FZS (15 April 1915 – 2 August 2005) was a British psychiatrist, physiologist and businessman. Born in London in 1915, he was the second son of Sir Alan Barlow, son of Sir Thomas Barlow, royal physician. His mother was Lady Nora Barlow, daughter of Sir Horace Darwin. He was a great-grandson of the naturalist Charles Darwin. Although Erasmus has been a common name in the family since the time of his great-great-great-grandfather Erasmus Darwin (and, in turn, since his ancestor Erasmus Earle), he was named after his mother's brother, his uncle Erasmus Darwin IV who was killed at the Second Battle of Ypres on 24 April, nine days after he was born. His elder brother was Commodore Sir Thomas Erasmus Barlow, a younger brother was Horace Barlow. He was educated at Marlborough College, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Medicine. He also studied at University College London. He married Brigit Ursula Hope Black (known as Biddy), daughter of the author Ladbroke Black in 1938. They had three children: Jeremy Barlow (b. 1939), flautist, music historian, and director of the Broadside Band, married Jane Marian Hollowood, and later Ruth Evelyn Savage Camilla Barlow (b. 1942), married Martin Christopher Mitcheson OBE, physician, and later Anthony Whitworth-Jones, director of Garsington Opera Phyllida Barlow (1944–2023), sculptor and Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, who married Fabian Peake, son of the artist Mervyn Peake.