VOLUME I.


CHAPTER 1.I.

THE DARWIN FAMILY.

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been
substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of Lincolnshire, close
to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusual in England, but I believe that
it is not unknown in the neighbourhood of Sheffield and in Lancashire.
Down to the year 1600 we find the name spelt in a variety of ways--Derwent,
Darwen, Darwynne, etc. It is possible, therefore, that the family migrated
at some unknown date from Yorkshire, Cumberland, or Derbyshire, where
Derwent occurs as the name of a river.

The first ancestor of whom we know was one William Darwin, who lived, about
the year 1500, at Marton, near Gainsborough. His great grandson, Richard
Darwyn, inherited land at Marton and elsewhere, and in his will, dated
1584, "bequeathed the sum of 3s. 4d. towards the settynge up of the
Queene's Majestie's armes over the quearie (choir) doore in the parishe
churche of Marton." (We owe a knowledge of these earlier members of the
family to researches amongst the wills at Lincoln, made by the well-known
genealogist, Colonel Chester.)

The son of this Richard, named William Darwin, and described as
"gentleman," appears to have been a successful man. Whilst retaining his
ancestral land at Marton, he acquired through his wife and by purchase an