Charles Darwin
Page 34
‘To the end of his life, Innes remained unpersuaded by Darwin’s theory of evolution.’ Nonetheless, the clergyman, who shared with Darwin an interest in natural history, was ‘always keen to pass on useful facts of natural history … [and, for example] reported on toads found in the stone cuttings of the new railway’.4 In fact, Innes described Darwin as ‘one of my very most valued and dearest friends’.5
On 15 December 1861 Darwin told Innes that he would be delighted to adopt, at Innes’s request, the latter’s son Johnny’s dog. ‘Quiz’ would be ‘taken great care of, & never parted with & when old & infirm shall pass from this life easily. Most truly yours C. Darwin’.6 Sadly, however, the following May, Darwin informed Innes:
I have bad news about Quiz: perhaps you had better not tell your son for a time. He has been killed; it was done instantaneously by a gun. We were forced to do this, for he would fly at poor people, & one day bit a child & two days after a beggar woman & we had an awful row about it.
However, another reason was that
we could not stop him having fearful battle with Tartar [Darwin’s own dog]; I had such a job one day in separating them both streaming with blood; & this was incessantly happening. Poor little Quiz had, also, got so asthmatic that he could not run, so that altogether we had no choice left us, though we were very sorry about it.7
In the year 1862 Innes relocated to Scotland, to an estate which he had inherited. Nevertheless, he
retained the advowson of the village [the right to recommend or to appoint a suitable Anglican clergyman to the vacant living i.e. position as vicar],8 and was thus responsible for the appointment of a resident curate and the maintenance of a local parsonage. The village of Downe did not fare well under this system. The living was comparatively small, and the local parsonage had been sold. In fact, some years before the Darwins arrived, the parsonage had actually been Down House. The details are not known, but Innes evidently had property of his own in the village, and did not need a parsonage. When he left for Scotland, he tried to secure the purchase of land for a new parsonage, but was unsuccessful.
Beginning in 1867, Downe’s parishioners experienced troubles securing the services of a reliable replacement for Innes. Darwin complained of the prolonged absence of the curate at the time, Samuel James O’Hara Horsman, and reported that, owing to difficulties in accessing church funds under Horsman’s care, he had had to advance the salary of the schoolmaster. Darwin also acted as intermediary for Horsman, who excused his long absence as due to his needing a ‘change of air’ and being invited by some friends, ‘who kindly took me about in their yacht & otherwise made it pleasant to me’.
In addition, said Horsman, he was induced to stay away because of ‘the wretched & miserable lodgings at Downe’ and all kinds of ‘wicked reports & misrepresentations about me’.9
Darwin wrote Innes on 20 January 1868 to say,
I am much obliged to you for sending me your Sermon … . You would have been pleased & wd have admired our church [at Downe] this Christmas as it was ornamented with great taste.10
Darwin expressed concern to Innes about the Reverend Horsman in June:
I was sure that you wd feel much annoyment with respect to Mr Horsman’s conduct in your parish. On June 2 Mr H. wrote to me a foolish letter, in which he said he believed that he held some balance on the [national] school account.
National schools, such as the one at Downe, provided an elementary education to the children of the poor, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England.
I wrote immediately in answer asking him to send me a cheque for the amount together with all accounts & documents relating to the school. I told him that on their receipt I wd send him a formal acknowledgment; but I have not heard a word from him since. The accounts of the Nat. school were audited up to Dec 31. 1867, & Mr H. has a balance in hand of £8—4—10 … . [Furthermore] the schoolmaster was not paid for last quarter, & now a second qr will soon be due, both of which I will advance.
He [Horsman] owes, I am told, some few bills in the village. There is one more serious matter; he was curiously anxious to get up a subscription for the new organ & some of the Lubbocks [of High Elm, Downe] have suggested that he may have pocketed the money & never paid for it.
Mr H. almost entirely neglected the school & considerable repairs were found necessary so that I fear the school account will be in a bad way. [Darwin ended his letter] I almost think he is more an utter fool than knave.11
Horsman’s replacement was John Warburton Robinson, who proved to be no better, for, on 1 December, Darwin informed Innes that the new curate
has suddenly left us to stay for 3 months in Ireland, & as I did not anticipate anything of the kind, I passed over the school account to him … . The curate, whom Mr Robinson has sent here does not appear any great [acquisition]. Mr Horsman, now that he is known to have been a complete & [premeditated] swindler (for no other interpretation as it seems to me can be put on his conduct about the Organ) has done much injury in the Parish & some of the subscribers to the School were actually afraid to pay the subscriptions to Mr Robinson apparently merely for [i.e. by reason of his] being a clergyman; & what they will think now that he has gone off for 3 months, I know not …
As I fully believe that you are anxious to do all the good that you can to your parish, I am sure you will allow me to say that unless you can very soon make some fixed arrangement, so that some respectable man may hold the living permanently, great injury will be done here, which it will take years to repair, & what you will consider of importance, the Church, will be lowered in the estimation of the whole neighbourhood. Already so staunch a tory [a member or supporter of the Conservative Party, which traditionally supported the Church of England] & [church-goer], as old Mr Abraham Smith goes to dissenting chapel & [propounded] the doctrine so astounding as coming from him, that perhaps the disestablishment of the English Church wd be no bad thing.12
Exasperated as he was by these events, Darwin was anxious that his local church should not be neglected by its clergy. However, he evidently found the ‘dissenting’ doctrine more to his taste than the Anglican one!
Nine days later, Darwin wrote to inform Innes that
rumours are very common in our village about Mr Robinson walking with girls at night. I did not mention them before, because I had not even moderately good authority; but my wife found Mrs Allen very indignant about Mr R’s conduct with one of her maids.
I do not believe that there is any evidence of actual immorality. As I repeat only second hand my name must not be mentioned. Our maids tell my wife that they do not believe that hardly anyone will go to Church now that Mr R. has returned.
What a plague this Parish does give you.13
Darwin might as well have added, after this last remark, ‘and me also’!
Following the scandals of Horsman and Robinson, Darwin
now kept the books of the Sunday School and the National School as well, and took personal charge of raising money for the upkeep of church buildings, as well as overseeing the repairs. ‘The Church will be lowered in the estimation of the whole neighbourhood’, Darwin warned.14
In 1869 yet another clergyman, the Reverend Henry Powell, was appointed Vicar of Downe. A relieved Darwin described him as
a thoroughly good man & gentleman. Does good work of all kinds in the Parish, but preaches, I hear, very dull sermons.15
Emma told writer and philanthropist Frances P. Cobbe in February,
I think the course of all modern thought is ‘desolating’ as removing God Further off. But I do not know whether his [Darwin’s] views on the moral sense would exclude Spiritual influence though not included in his theory – So you see I am a traitor in the camp.16
In other words, Emma is hoping against hope that her husband has not totally abandoned his Christian faith.
In that year Powell was succeeded by George Sketchley Ffinden, who served as Vicar of Downe for the next forty years. Like Innes, Ffinden
Darwin’s clash with Ffinden might be attributed to ideology. Despite his deep respect for established authority, including that of the Church [a point which is arguable, to say the least!], Darwin’s theories ran counter to the traditional rationale for such authority. Ffinden did indeed write to [Sir John] Lubbock of the ‘harmful tendencies to the cause of revealed religion of Mr Darwin’s views’, adding that he trusted ‘that God’s grace might in time bring one so highly gifted intellectually & morally to a better mind’.18 Yet such theoretical differences, though manifest, had not divided Darwin and Innes, who shared Ffinden’s High Church training and outlook.19
In May 1872 Darwin sent Ffinden a cheque for £35 ‘as his subscription towards the building of a vicarage’.20
Darwin sent Ffinden ‘contributions to the Down Coal and Clothing Club, consisting of £5 for self, £1 for [i.e. on behalf of] my son George, & £3 for my son Francis’ in December 1877.21
In late November 1873, Darwin thanked Innes for sending him a copy of a sermon by theologian Dr Edward B. Pusey (which, on the 3rd of that month, had been read by theologian Henry P. Liddon at the Church of St Mary’s, Oxford, in which Pusey attacked the theory of evolution. Darwin commented:
I am a little disappointed in it, as I expected more vigour & less verbiage. I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as he desires, as geology has to treat of the history of the Earth & Biology that of man. But I most wholly agree with you that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness, though each upholding strictly their beliefs.
For his part, Darwin could not ‘remember that I have ever published a word directly against religion or the clergy.’22
The following day, to botanist Henry N. Ridley, Darwin wrote:
I have never answered criticisms excepting those made by scientific men … . Dr Pusey’s attack will be as powerless to retard by a day the belief in evolution as were the virulent attacks made by divines fifty years ago against Geology, & the still older ones of the Catholic church against Galileo, for the public is wise enough always to follow scientific men when they agree on any subject; & now there is almost complete unanimity amongst Biologists about Evolution … .23
Darwin’s annual contributions to the church dropped from £50 in 1872 to £10 in 1873, and less thereafter; but he continued to give large sums for restoration work.24
Towards the end of 1880 Darwin agreed that ‘the young Brethren evangelist’ James Fegan should have the use of Downe’s aforementioned reading room. Wrote he to Fegan:
May I have the pleasure of handing the Reading Room over to you? [i.e. to rent] … you have done more for the village in a few months than all our efforts for many years. We have never been able to reclaim a drunkard, but through your services I do not know that there is [one] left in the village.25
Members of Darwin’s family sometimes attended Fegan’s services, altering their dinner hour to do so.26
NOTES
1. Clarke and Claydon, ‘Darwin’s Church’, by Paul White, Studies in Church History, Volume 46, p.344.
2. Oxford Dictionaries Online.
3. Clarke and Claydon, op. cit., p.345.
4. Ibid, p.346.
5. Innes to Darwin, 21 January 1871, Cor.19, p.29.
6. Darwin to Innes, 15 December, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 3343.
7. Darwin to Innes, 1 May, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 3528.
8. Oxford Dictionaries Online.
9. Horsman to Darwin, 2 June, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 6223, and Clarke and Claydon, op. cit., pp.346–7.
10. Darwin to Innes, 20 January, Cor.16, p.28.
11. Darwin to Innes, 15 June, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 6242.
12. Darwin to Innes, 1 December 1868, Cor.16, pp.871–2.
13. Darwin to Innes, 10 December, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 6497.
14. Darwin to Innes, I December 1868, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 6486, and Clarke, and Claydon, op. cit., p.348.
15. Darwin to Innes, 18 January, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 7445.
16. Emma to F.P. Cobbe, [25 February 1871], Cor.19, p.106.
17. Ffinden, to Emma, 24 December 1873, cited in Moore, op. cit., p.471, and Clarke and Claydon, op. cit., Volume 46, pp.348–9.
18. Ffinden to Lubbock, 1875, cited in Moore, op. cit., pp.471–2, and Clarke and Claydon, Op cit., Volume 46, pp.348–9.
19. Clarke and Claydon, op. cit., Volume 46, pp.348–9.
20. Darwin to Ffinden, 21 May, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 8342.
21. Darwin to Ffinden, G.S., Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 10706a.
22. Darwin to Innes, 27 November, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 11763.
23. Darwin to Henry N. Ridley, 28 November 1878, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 11766.
24. Moore, op. cit., p.473.
25. Darwin to Fegan, Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 12879.
26. Clarke and Claydon, op. cit., Volume 46, p.350.
Chapter 41
The Darwin Children
Of Darwin’s love for his children there is no doubt. For them to be happy was his earnest wish, and one may imagine them playing tennis or croquet on the lawn, accompanying him on nature study walks, or propelling themselves down the wooden slide which he had installed especially for their amusement on the short staircase leading from the half-landing. However, this did not preclude him from regarding them as appropriate subjects for scientific study. As a father he wore two hats, firstly as a loving and protective parent, sensitive to their sufferings, a fact which made him intensely vulnerable in particular during their periods of illness; secondly as a scientist, who recorded their every gesture, grimace, sign of pleasure or displeasure, how they interacted with him and with other family members, and how their antics resembled those of the apes, to whom, as he proved, they were closely related.
For example, in respect of (William) Erasmus, born 27 December 1839, he describes how
At his 8th day [i.e. when he was seven days old] he frowned much … now his eyebrows are very little prominent & scarcely a vestige of down [fine soft hair on the face or body1]: therefore if frowning has any relation to vision, it must now be quite instinctive: moreover vision at this age is exceedingly imperfect. At his 9th day, however, he appeared to follow a candle with his eyes.2 When 7-weeks old, his eyes were attracted by a dangling tassle & a bright colour.3
When Erasmus was aged four months, commented Darwin,
I made [a] loud snoring noise near his face, which made him look grave & afraid & then suddenly burst out crying. This is curious, considering the wondrous number of strange noises, & stranger grimaces I have made at him, & which he has always taken as a good joke. I repeated the experiment.4
And when Erasmus was aged one year, he ‘kissed himself in the glass [mirror] & pressed his face against his image very like [Orang-utan]’.
Darwin made similar observations about his other children – the way they expressed pleasure or pain; their progress in learning to speak; the development of their characters; how they both gave and demanded affection, etc. (Such observations by Darwin culminated in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872.)
A caring, but not uncritical, father
When daughte
r Anne was three years old, Darwin wrote, ‘Obstinacy is her chief fault at present.’5
To his eldest son William, in October 1851, Darwin wrote of his second son, George Howard Darwin, now aged six:
All day long Georgy is drawing ships or soldiers, more especially drummers whom he will talk about as long as anyone will listen to him.6
When, in early February 1852, William entered Rugby School as a boarder, Darwin wrote to him to say, ‘We are so very glad to hear that you are happy & comfortable; long may you keep so my dear Boy.’7 However, the following year he issued this caveat, in regard to schools in general:
my main objection to them, as places of education, is the enormous proportion of time spent over classics. I fancy, that I can perceive the ill & contracting effect on my eldest Boy’s mind, in checking interest in anything in which reasoning & observation comes into play. Mere memory seems to be worked.8
That is, the pupils were not encouraged to think for themselves. It was therefore not surprising that Darwin chose a different establishment for the education of his remaining sons, namely Clapham School, where they would be taught mathematics and science by the Reverend Charles Pritchard, a contemporary of his at Cambridge.
The children’s health
Of the Darwins’ ten children three did not survive beyond the age of ten. Anne Elizabeth, born in 1841, died in 1851 (allegedly) of tuberculosis;9 Mary Eleanor, born in 1842, died aged twenty-three days of an unknown disease; and Charles Waring, born in 1856, died aged eighteen months of scarlet fever. (According to Randal H. Keynes, Charles may also have been a sufferer from Down’s syndrome.)10