The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin

Thomas Darwin was the last of eleven children born to Charles Robert Darwin and Emma Wedgwood. Scattered details of his early years can be found by focussed reading of obvious sources — primarily the preserved correspondence of Emma Darwin (particularly the letters to her maiden aunt, Fanny Allen) as well as the affectionate but unpolished accounts of Charles Darwin’s life by various descendants. The writings of Charles Darwin also contain a number of references to his youngest son. These include his Autobiography as well as his text The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals where descriptions of Thomas appear on three occasions. There are also the “scientific” observations of Thomas’s first eighteen months contained within one of his father’s unpublished diaries.

Little preserved material relates to Thomas’s adolescence or early adulthood. There are the brief annual reports of his student experience at Clapham, a boarding school attended by other members of his family. Accounts of Thomas’s subsequent two years at Cambridge University are largely confined to the transcriptions of his readings to the Plinian Society, a student group devoted to discourse on the natural sciences, as well as a preserved expense notebook with its list of purchases incurred during Thomas’s brief research excursion to Sheffield. There is also Thomas’s single letter to his father, and his father’s response, both previously published in various compilations of Darwin correspondence. Finally, brief reminiscences of Thomas appear in an acquaintance’s memoir.

According to Darwin family lore, an otherwise healthy Thomas tragically and abruptly died of tuberculosis while travelling in Canada following his second year at Cambridge. Essential to the expanded, and surprising, life story presented in this account are two key and previously unappreciated collections of primary sources.

First and foremost, my enquiry into the career of Thomas Darwin’s Canadian physician, Richard M. Bucke, led to an assortment of relevant materials now housed in the Rare Book Room at the University of Western Ontario. These include Bucke’s diaries, one of which contains a number of entries concerning Thomas’s psychiatric illness along with a letter, almost certainly confiscated, that Thomas wrote to his mother near the end of his confinement in the London Asylum. As well, there is the brief correspondence — previously unpublished — between Bucke and Charles Darwin, which includes a short note that Charles Darwin requested Bucke deliver to his son. The collection also includes Bucke’s extensive scientific and personal correspondence, including the first draft of a letter he wrote to the physician William Osler concerning Thomas; letters to and from J. W. Langmuir, the province of Ontario’s Inspector of Asylums, Prisons, and Public Charities; and of less relevance to this account, notes to and from the poet Walt Whitman. Lastly, two additional documents associated with Thomas’s transfer to the London Asylum that were amongst a series of “Admission Warrants and Histories” dating to the early 1870s were a significant find. This material was relocated to the Rare Book Room on the closure of a small archival and teaching museum that had previously been maintained in what is now London’s Regional Mental Health Care facility.

The second crucial array of source material revolves around Thomas Darwin’s unpublished manuscript submitted to the journal Nature. As Charles Darwin’s letter to Bucke alluded to this work, I contacted the current administration at Nature’s head office in London, England. The article in question (titled, “Hybrid Artefacts and Their Role in Our Understanding of the Evolution of Inanimate Objects”) as well as a copy of its letter of rejection was eventually unearthed in an archived file.

In what must have been an extraordinary circumstance, Thomas’s submission prompted a concerned Joseph Norman Lockyer, the Editor of Nature at that time, to write to Charles Darwin. A copy of this letter, as well as Charles Darwin’s response, was also preserved in the Nature file.

In summary, what was intended to be a (lively!) academic account of Canadian asylums circuitously and with growing momentum has evolved into a biography of Thomas Darwin and a repository for those images, letters, and manuscripts that unfold his story. Chapters 1 to 4 provide a brief sketch of Thomas’s life — from his earliest days at Down House, through school days and Cambridge to, finally, his involuntary admission and subsequent death in the London Asylum. Thomas’s known scholarly works, all related in some way to his unusual interest in eating utensils, are reproduced in Chapters 5 to 8, along with details of their critical reception. Original source material related to his psychiatric illness and his confinement in the London Asylum is presented in Chapters 9 and 10.

The concluding Epilogue is a contemporary reappraisal of Thomas’s scholarly contributions as well as his underlying illness. Thomas Darwin’s life merits such resurrection, both as a testament to his significant accomplishments and for the bittersweet depth it adds to our knowledge of Charles Darwin, eminent scientist and devoted father.

[10th October 1879]

[10th October 1879]

To Dr. William Osler

Institutes of Medicine,

McGill University,

Montreal

Dear Will,

I look forward to your imminent arrival. Here in London our committee has been hard at work, and we excitedly await those attending the Annual Meeting. Please note we commence at 10 o’clock on the 16th, and your anatomical demonstration will be the first of two morning presentations. I warn you now that Buller follows you with a talk on pilocarpine in iritis — brace yourself!

And now on to a serious matter. The spread of tuberculosis is a current concern at the Asylum. At present, three of our patients have suspected cases, one of whom is a young man whose condition worries me greatly. His name is Thomas Darwin, the youngest son of England’s celebrated Charles Darwin.

Thomas’s story is a sad one. Travelling alone, he was admitted under Warrant to our Asylum just over three months ago and, though slightly malnourished, presented as physically well. In conversation, however, he was deluded on the most peculiar of matters, all confined in some way to eating utensils. Though now more settled, his odd beliefs persist. Yet he has worked well in the gardens, and the attendants have come to respect his courteous and eloquent presence with us.

One week ago, Thomas’s breathing became more rapid. Now febrile, he refuses almost all nourishment and barely rises from his bed. Although in obvious discomfort, he speaks only of forks and knives and spoons. We have tried analgesics and sedatives — I fear prayer is next.

If your schedule allows, I would be grateful if you would examine Thomas while in London. One opportunity may be the following — at the conclusion of Buller’s lecture, we will depart en masse to the Asylum for lunch. Afterwards, I have asked Sippi to lead the members on a tour of the grounds and, if time allows, an inspection of one or two wards. We might then part from the group in order to assess Thomas. He is now in one of the Cottages, and we could rejoin the meeting once the afternoon session begins. Your diagnostic opinion and treatment recommendations would be thankfully received — no doubt by the Darwin family as well.

In closing, please apprise us of any needed assistance with respect to lodging. A reminder — reduced railway fares are available to members of the Dominion Medical Association. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not indicate my profound respect for your work and its influence on my recent publication, which I have sent by separate post. We are truly fortunate to have your expertise in our midst!

Yours most sincerely,

Richard M. Bucke

Medical Superintendent

London Asylum

PART ONE

ONE

DOWN HOUSE

Thomas Darwin was born on December 10th, 1857, the eleventh and last child of Charles Robert Darwin and his wife Emma (née Wedgwood). All but three of the Darwin children reached the age of majority. Mary Eleanor, third born, died in infancy in 1842 while the much-loved Annie succumbed in her tenth year in 1851. Charles Waring, born developmentally disabled one year earlier than Thomas, died at only two years of age in 1858. Of Thomas’s seven surviving siblings (William Erasmus, Henrietta Emma, George Howard, Elizabeth, Francis, Leonard, and Horace), Horace was the closest in age to Thomas, but almost seven years his senior. As a result of his much younger age, Thomas grew up in relative isolation from his older brothers and sisters, particularly during his adolescent years.

Home was Down House, a large residence sixteen miles south of London, England, located on the outskirts of the small village of Down (now spelled Downe) in the county of Kent. Charles and Emma Darwin moved to this quiet countryside some three years after their marriage, having found the social commitments of London society poorly suited to Charles’s health. After settling in Down House in 1841, and with the considerable aid of a large domestic staff, they resided there with contentment throughout their forty years of married life.

Figure 1. Down House:

Back of House from Garden with Trellises and Climbers, Summer Half of Year. CUL location-MS. DAR.219: 12.172-173. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

Oddly, the earliest accounts concerning Thomas’s infancy and toddler years are found within the scientific literature. Charles Darwin was a loving and attentive father, but a child’s arrival was also an opportunity for the close scrutiny of a domesticated species of interest. Charles studied Thomas intensely, as he had his other children, and the initial observations of his youngest son were recorded in a vellum-bound diary, still extant as Appendix IV of the Oxbridge Unabridged Correspondence of Charles Darwin.

The notes begin with a meticulous account of Thomas’s reflex actions. Thomas first yawned on the third day of his life. On day thirteen, he sneezed. Between three and four weeks of age, he began to startle at loud noises. As Thomas slowly matured, his father’s brief comments evolved into more complex observations. By carefully monitoring Thomas’s facial expressions and the circumstances in which they occurred, Charles effectively recorded Thomas’s earliest experiences of anger, fear, affection, pleasure, shyness, and even his sense of morality.

It was at four months of age that Thomas first expressed fear. Until then, Charles had delighted Thomas by playing peek-a-boo while galloping on an oversized rocking horse, a family heirloom. On the evening of April 10th, 1858, however, Charles and the horse unexpectedly toppled quite violently. Thomas’s moment of surprise quickly transformed into stupefied amazement and then fear. Charles, lying prostrate and injured, still managed to note that, as Thomas watched, powerless, from his crib, his son’s eyebrows were raised and both his eyes and mouth were widely opened. In recounting the melodrama, Charles acknowledged he had reflexively scanned the rocking horse for signs of terror, searching specifically for dilated nostrils. Subsequently, Thomas would whimper whenever his father tried to reinitiate the game and the rocking horse was soon removed from the nursery.

Thomas’s calm demeanour was rarely broken and Charles recorded only one ill-tempered outburst. At seven months of age, Thomas glared fiercely when his nurse inadvertently dropped the bottle from which he was feeding. Gums clenched, Thomas briefly raised his hands as if to strike the offending nurse, but quickly reverted to passivity. The first indication of Thomas’s sense of injustice and morality soon followed. At eight months of age, Thomas refused to kiss an older sister, possibly Henrietta, when she declined to share her last piece of liquorice.

A notable feature of the entire diary (which ended when Thomas was eighteen months of age) is the frequent comparisons found within its entries. On the more pedestrian level, the timings of Thomas’s developmental milestones were consistently cross-referenced to those of his brothers and sisters. In general, Thomas’s progression was roughly equivalent to that of his siblings. Thomas did, however, show a much earlier aptitude for drawing, a fine motor skill he acquired when only fifteen months of age.

The far more interesting correlations were Charles Darwin’s whimsical comparisons of Thomas’s development to a diverse range of plants and animals. Insectivorous plants were more excitable, iguanas more agile, and rhododendron seeds much hardier. The most unusual inference was when Thomas’s melodious intonation of “Oh, Oh!” was deemed analogous to the musical utterances of the short-beaked tumbler pigeon.

Throughout Thomas’s infancy, Charles also subjected his youngest son to an ongoing series of experiments that were conducted with the assistance of the other Darwin children. To test Thomas’s startle response, Charles recruited Francis to play his bassoon from variable distances and directions. To test Thomas’s reflex withdrawal, Elizabeth was instructed to stimulate specific areas of Thomas’s limbs and torso with strips of blotting paper. Thomas tolerated the attention with good humour.

Always inquisitive, Charles’s conjectures and theories eventually became too much for Emma. Shortly after Thomas had begun breastfeeding, Charles noted that Thomas would protrude his lips whenever Emma’s bosom approached within five to six inches. After excluding any correlation with vision or touch, Charles generated a list of alternative explanations that included a possible association to the position in which Thomas was cradled when about to be fed. Although Thomas seemed unfazed, Emma could not bear the delay in feeding occasioned by Charles’s constant requests for Emma to withdraw her breast, reposition Thomas in her arms, and to again thrust her by then oozing breast towards Thomas. An exasperated Emma requested Charles to refrain from attending further breastfeeding sessions, a maternal injunction he amenably recorded and obeyed.

Though not intended as such, Charles’s notes concerning Thomas amount to an engaging biographical sketch of an infant, publishable immediately as an independent manuscript had Charles wished to do so. Instead, he characteristically delayed publication and chose to include selected observations of Thomas in a much later work titled The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, printed in 1872. Here, Charles’s meticulous surveillance of Thomas and the other Darwin children aided his delineation of thirty-four distinct emotional states in man. A careful reading of Expression of the Emotions reveals that depictions made under the headings of “Meditation,” “Self-Attention,” and “Shyness” pertained to Thomas. Though circumscribed in nature, Thomas’s three appearances within Expression of the Emotions convey a thoughtful and sensitive child.

Figure 2. Photographs Used to Depict Suffering and Weeping. In Darwin, C. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: John Murray, 1872.

Plate 1 with six vignettes of babies. CUL location S382.d.87.1. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

The evocation of “Shyness” is particularly poignant. After a week’s absence to obtain treatment at Dr. Lane’s hydropathic establishment,

Charles was touched by Thomas’s response on his return home. Just seventeen months of age, Thomas initially averted his eyes and attempted to hide his face in his mother’s dress as Charles warmly greeted Emma and his other children. After hesitating briefly, Thomas then reached out to hug his elated father.

Other early glimpses of Thomas can be found within his mother’s correspondence. When younger, Emma frequently exchanged letters with many of her Darwin and Wedgwood relatives, particularly her Aunt Fanny Allen. At first, Emma enjoyed describing the activities of her children, especially William, Annie, and Henrietta. By the time Thomas was born, however, Emma’s writing had begun to take on a reserved and less personal quality. Emma’s earliest mention of Thomas occurred in association with his first birthday.

Down, Friday Dec 10th [1858]

My dearest Aunt Fanny,

It was so pleasant to receive your affectionate letter on this special date. Our dear Thomas is one year old today. His brothers and sisters adore him; he is so delicate and quiet. Yet still I am tired and drained. How thankful I will be when the children no longer require such constant care and attention. Even then I suppose Charles will never want to be alone. My poor Charles. His stomach aches again and he has been very uncomfortable.

Yours, E. D.