Leaf
Category
Natural History / Animals, Plants & Fossils
Date
Unknown
Materials
Leaf
Collection
Mr Straw's House, Nottinghamshire
NT 3138492.2.4
Summary
The first set of three leaves from a tree kept alongside a scrap of paper taken from a letter with a handwritten note on the other side by William Jnr., a dried and pressed seed head, two matching plant leaves, three different leaves from trees, a single leaf and a handwritten double sided note all kept together throughout the book 'Principia botanica' by Robert Waring Darwin (1724-1816) (record 3138492). 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), Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the poet, philosopher, physician, etc., and John Darwin, rector of Elston. He never married and had no children, but his nephew Dr Robert Waring Darwin, son of Erasmus and father of Charles Darwin, took his name. He was educated at Chesterfield Grammar School, and St John's College, Cambridge although he apparently did not take a degree, but became a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn. He inherited Elston Hall on the death of his father in 1754. Elston is a small village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England, to the southwest of Newark, and a mile from the A46 Fosse Way. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 631. The parish of Elston lies between the rivers Trent and Devon, with "the village itself set amongst trees and farmland less than a mile from the A46. Elston Hall was "the home of the Darwin family from 1680 until just after the Second World War, when the estate was sold. Its most famous resident was the savant Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin. Erasmus was the founder of the Lunar Society, which included Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Joseph Priestley and Benjamin Franklin."