Henrietta Emma Litchfield (née Darwin; 25 September 1843
– 17 December 1927) was a daughter of
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
and his wife
Emma Wedgwood
Emma Darwin (; 2 May 1808 – 2 October 1896) was an English woman who was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin. They were married on 29 January 1839 and were the parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.
Early lif ...
.
Henrietta was born at
Down House
Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving to Down ...
,
Downe
Downe, formerly Down, () is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley but beyond the London urban sprawl. Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies on a hill, and ...
, Kent, in 1843. She was Darwin's third daughter and the eldest daughter to reach adulthood after the eldest,
Annie
Annie may refer to:
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* Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Annie (actress) (born 1975), Indian actress
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The ...
, died aged 10, and a second daughter, Mary, died before she was a month old.
She and her brother
Frank
Frank or Franks may refer to:
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Curr ...
helped their father with his work, and Henrietta helped edit ''
The Descent of Man
''The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871, which applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection, a form of biolo ...
''.
On 31 August 1871, she married
Richard Buckley Litchfield
Richard Buckley Litchfield (6 January 1832 in Yarpole – 11 January 1903 in Cannes) was a British scholar and philanthropist..
Life
R. B. Litchfield was the only son of Captain Richard Litchfield of Cheltenham, England. He was educated at Chelte ...
,
who was born in Yarpole, near Leominster, in 1832;
the couple had no children. She was widowed on 11 January 1903, when Richard died in
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
;
he was buried in the English Cemetery, Cannes.
Henrietta edited Charles Darwin's biography of his grandfather
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet.
His poems ...
, ''
The Life of Erasmus Darwin'', and ''
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
''The Autobiography of Charles Darwin'' is an autobiography by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.
Darwin wrote the text, which he entitled ''Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character'', for his family. He states that he star ...
'', removing several contentious passages. She also edited her mother's private papers (''
Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters'') (1904). She responded to the
Lady Hope Story
Elizabeth Reid Cotton, (9 December 1842 – 8 March 1922) who became Lady Hope when she married Sir James Hope in 1877, was a British evangelist active in the Temperance movement.
In 1915, she claimed to have visited the British naturalist C ...
that her father had undergone a
deathbed conversion
A deathbed conversion is the adoption of a particular religious faith shortly before dying. Making a conversion on one's deathbed may reflect an immediate change of belief, a desire to formalize longer-term beliefs, or a desire to complete a ...
by writing an article in ''The Christian'' in 1922 saying it "
adno foundation whatsoever". She died in
Burrows Hill Burrows may refer to:
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* Burrows (electoral district), a provincial electoral district in Manitoba, Canada
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,
Gomshall
Gomshall is a village in the borough of Guildford in Surrey, England.OS Explorer map 145:Guildford and Farnham. Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton.
It is on the A25, roughly halfway between Guildford and Dorking, and i ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, aged 84. An obituary was in ''The Times''.
[The Times, Saturday, Dec 24, 1927; pg. 10; Issue 44773; col B Mrs. Litchfield. Darwin's Daughter And Helper. A correspondent. Obituaries]
She is buried in St Mary the Virgin Churchyard,
Downe
Downe, formerly Down, () is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley but beyond the London urban sprawl. Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies on a hill, and ...
, Kent.
VIAF
References
*
Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood – an autobiographical work by
Gwen Raverat
Gwendolen Mary "Gwen" Raverat (née Darwin; 26 August 1885 – 11 February 1957), was an English wood engraver who was a founder member of the Society of Wood Engravers. Her memoir ''Period Piece'' was published in 1952.
Biography
Gwendolen Ma ...
.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Litchfield, Henrietta
1843 births
1927 deaths
Darwin–Wedgwood family
People from Downe