George Henslow (23 March 1835,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, UK – 30 December 1925,

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

) was an Anglican curate,

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

and author. Henslow was notable for being a defender of

Lamarckian evolution Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

Biography

The third son of Rev.

John Stevens Henslow John Stevens Henslow (6 February 1796 – 16 May 1861) was a British priest, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin. Early life Henslow was born at Rochester, Kent, the son of a solici ...

, George Henslow was educated at

King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds King Edward VI School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The school in its present form was created in 1972 by the merging of King Edward VI Grammar School, with the Silver Jubilee Girls Scho ...

and then matriculated on 30 May 1854 at

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

, where he graduated B.A. 1858 and M.A. 1861. He was ordained in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

a deacon in 1859 and a priest in 1861. In 1864 he became a

Fellow of the Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

. He was the headmaster from 1861 to 1864 of Hampton Lucy Grammar School and from 1865 to 1872 of the Grammar School,

Store Street, London Store Street is a street in Bloomsbury, London. Location Store Street runs between Gower Street and Tottenham Court Road. It is joined by Ridgmount Street on its north side. Store Street runs parallel with Chenies Street and Alfred Place joins ...

. From 1868 to 1880 he was Lecturer in Botany at

St Bartholomew's Hospital St Bartholomew's Hospital, commonly known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 and is currently run by Barts Health NHS Trust. History Early history Barts was founded in 1123 by Rahere (died ...

and also at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

and

Queen's College, London Queen's College is an independent school for girls aged 11–18 with an adjoining prep school for girls aged 4–11 located in the City of Westminster, London. Founded in 1848 by theologian and social reformer Frederick Denison Maurice along wit ...

. He was from 1868 to 1870 Curate of St John's Wood Chapel and from 1870 to 1887 Curate of St James's, Marylebone. He resided at

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

, where he was from 1882 to 1904 President of the Ealing Microscopical and Natural History Society, then resided at Drayton House in Learnington and finally at Bournemouth. On 26 October 1897 he was among the first 60 medallists of the

Victoria Medal of Honour The Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH) is awarded to British horticulturists resident in the United Kingdom whom the Royal Horticultural Society Council considers deserving of special honour by the Society. The award was established in 1897 "in per ...

awarded by the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...

. He married in Cambridge on 13 October 1859 Ellen Weekley (''c.'' 1836–1875) but they divorced on 8 July 1872. In

St Pancras, London St Pancras () is a district in north London. It was originally a medieval ancient parish and subsequently became a metropolitan borough. The metropolitan borough then merged with neighbouring boroughs and the area it covered now forms around ...

in the 4th registration quarter of 1872 he married Georgina Brook Bailey (1843–1876). In 1881 he married his third wife Katharine Yeo (''c.'' 1845–1919), the widow of Reverend Yeo of Ealing. George Henslow's third wife brought step-children to his third marriage but bore no more children. There were five children from his first marriage but only one, George Stevens Henslow (1863–1924), survived to adulthood. Henslow died on 30 December 1925 in Bournemouth. In his later years he became a believer in

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

Evolution

Henslow was a proponent of

theistic evolution Theistic evolution (also known as theistic evolutionism or God-guided evolution) is a theological view that God creates through laws of nature. Its religious teachings are fully compatible with the findings of modern science, including biological ...

who held that "natural selection plays no part in the origin of species." He promoted his

Lamarckian Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

theory of evolution in plants by direct adaptation, known as "the True Darwinism". He used this term in opposition to

Neo-Darwinism Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Dar ...

, which denied the inheritance of acquired characteristics.Moore, James. (1991). ''Deconstructing Darwinism: The Politics of Evolution in the 1860s''. ''Journal of the History of Biology'' 24 (3): 353-408.

Selected publications

Articles

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Books

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References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Henslow, George 1835 births 1925 deaths 19th-century English Anglican priests 19th-century English writers 20th-century English Anglican priests 20th-century English writers Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge English botanists English spiritualists Lamarckism Parapsychologists Parson-naturalists Theistic evolutionists Victoria Medal of Honour (Horticulture) recipients