Wedgwood, Emma |
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BORN 2 May 1808, Maer, Staffordshire: Maer Hall - DIED 2 Oct 1896, Bromley, Kent GRAVE LOCATION Downe, Kent: St Mary the Virgin (Churchyard: east part near the fence bordering High Elms Road) |
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Daughter and youngest of the seven children of of Josiah Wedgwood II. She was a fine pianist and Ignaz Moscheles gave her lessons. Possibly Chopin also gave her a lesson or two. Once she played for Mrs Fitzherbert, George IV's mistress. In 1825 her father took his daughters on a grand tour of Europe. She turned down several offers of marriage before she accepted her cousin Charles Darwin's proposal in 1838. They were married in 1839 and soon moved to Down House in the village of Down, now known as Downe. They had ten children. Seven of them survived and they raised them in a non-authoritarian manner. Charles Darwin was often ill and after he died in 1882 she lived in Down during the summers and in a house in Cambridge during the winters. After her death in 1896 she was buried in Down. Events |
| 4/12/1836 | Henry Holland considers Darwin's journal not worth while to be published alone. It was during a party organised by Fanny and Hensleigh Wedgwood after the Darwin's had returned from his voyage with the Beagle. Darwin thought that Holland talked much good sense. Both Darwin's future wife Emma Wedgwood and Hensleigh Wedgwood did not value Holland's opinion. Darwin's journal would become world famnous as "The Voyage of the Beagle" in 1839. [Holland, Henry, 1st Baronet] |
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