Robert Darwin of

Elston Elston is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England, to the south-west of Newark, and a mile from the A46 Fosse Way. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 631. It lies between the rivers Trent and Devon ...

(12 August 1682 — 20 November 1754) was an English lawyer, scientist and physician. He was the father of English physician

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 ...

, and a great-grandfather of the famous English naturalist and geologist

Charles Robert Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, best known for his contributions to evolution. It is with Robert Darwin of Elston, Nottinghamshire that many biographies of his great-grandson begin. In 1719 Darwin was instrumental in bringing the attention of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

to the first remains of a Jurassic reptile to be found: a fossilised

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, ''plesios'', meaning "near to" and ''sauros'', meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared ...

, that would originally have been about long. The stone came from a quarry at Fulbeck and had been used, with the fossil on its underside, to reinforce the edge of a well in Elston. After the strange bones it contained had been discovered, it was displayed in the garden of the local parsonage by the rector, the Rev. John South, as a curiosity. Darwin communicated with

William Stukeley William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric ...

who obtained the fossil for the Royal Society and described it in a paper in the ''

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. In its earliest days, it was a private venture of the Royal Society's secretary. It was established in 1665, making it the first journa ...

'', calling it "a Rarity, the like whereof has not been observ'd before in this Island". Stukeley speculated on the reasons for the fossil's presence in rock, mentioning the Biblical flood: he said that it was not human, but was probably a

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to inclu ...

porpoise Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals an ...

. The specimen is today on display in the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus ''Plesiosaurus'' (Greek: ' ('), near to + ' ('), lizard) is a genus of extinct, large marine sauropterygian reptile that lived during the Early Jurassic. It is known by nearly complete skeletons from the Lias of England. It is distinguishable by ...

, with the original registration numbe
R.1330
It is the earliest discovered more or less complete fossil reptile skeleton in a museum collection.

Family

Darwin married Elizabeth Hill (1702–1797) on 1 January 1724 at Balderton, Nottinghamshire. They had four sons and three daughters: *

Robert Waring Darwin of Elston Robert Waring Darwin (1724–1816) of Elston Hall was an English botanist. He was the eldest son of Robert Darwin of Elston (1682–1754), a lawyer, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702–1797). His brothers were William Alvey Darwin (1726-1783), ...

(1724–1816), lawyer and botanist * Elizabeth Darwin (15 September 1725 – 8 April 1800) * William Alvey Darwin (1726–1783) * Anne Darwin (12 November 1727 – 3 August 1813) * Susannah Darwin (10 April 1729 – 29 September 1789) * Rev. John Darwin (1730–1805), rector of Elston *

(1731–1802), the poet, philosopher, physician, etc.

References

1682 births 1754 deaths 17th-century Christians Darwin–Wedgwood family {{England-med-bio-stub