Charles Darwin (1758–1778)

Charles Darwin (3 September 1758 – 15 May 1778) was the oldest son of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) and Mary Howard (1740–70), and was the uncle of the famous naturalist Charles Robert Darwin (though dying before his nephew's birth). He showed considerable promise while studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, but died while still a student.

A memoir by his father recalled young Charles Darwin as having a precocious interest in science, from infancy being:

accustomed to examine all natural objects with more attention than is usual: first by his senses simply; then by tools, which were his playthings – By this early use of his hands, he gained accurate ideas of many of the qualities of bodies; and was thence afterwards enabled to acquire the knowledge of mechanics with ease and with accuracy; and the invention and improvement of machines was one of the first efforts of his ingenuity, and one of the first sources of his amusement.
He had frequent opportunities in his early years of observing the various fossile productions in their native beds; and descended the mines of Derbyshire, and of some other counties, with uncommon pleasure and observation. He collected with care the products of these countries; and examined them by such experiments, as he had been taught,or had discovered: hence he obtained not only distinct but indelible ideas of the properties of bodies, at the very time when he learnt the names of them; and thus the complicate science of chemistry became not only easy, but delightful to him.

Like his father, he suffered from a stammer as a child. In an attempt to cure this by learning the French language, around the end of October 1766 the eight-year-old Charles Darwin was sent to Paris with a private tutor, the Reverend Samuel Dickenson. They travelled, and brought back many aromatic plants of Montpellier from Gouan. Darwin was only allowed to converse in French, and by their return in or possibly after March 1767 he was able to speak fluent French without a stammer, but the problem persisted when he spoke English. He went on to study at Lichfield School which had, in his father's view, an excessive emphasis on the Classics. His mother suffered from a long illness, and died on 30 July 1770. Erasmus showed deep distress, but was resilient and after about a year found another partner. Charles continued to show impressive abilities as he grew up. He made friends with some of his father's fellow members of the Lunar Society, including William Small and Matthew Boulton.

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